Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 25 Years in Space

Revel in this spectacular commemorative image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of HubbleCast.

Hubble was launched in orbit on 24 April 1990 as the first space telescope of its kind. For two and a half decades, it has beamed back data and images that have changed our understanding of the Universe and how it came to be.

This amazing image of the star cluster Westerlund 2 is a giant cluster of about 3000 stars. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina.

The stellar nursery is enshrouded by dust, but Hubble’s Camera peered through the dusty veil in near-infrared light, giving us a clear view of its inner workings. The image resolves the dense concentration of stars in the center, about 10 light-years across.

The cluster is only about two million years old, but contains some of the brightest, hottest and most massive stars ever discovered. Some of the heftiest stars are carving deep cavities in the surrounding material by unleashing torrents of ultraviolet light and high speed streams of charged particles, known as stellar winds. These are etching away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud in which the stars were born and are responsible for the weird and wonderful shapes of the clouds of gas and dust in the image.

The pillars in the image are composed of dense gas and dust, and are resisting erosion from the fierce radiation and powerful winds. These gaseous monoliths are a few light-years tall and point to the central cluster. Other dense regions surround the pillars, including dark filaments of dust and gas.

[halsoy]

My jaw literally dropped seeing the transition from the old to the new horsehead nebula picture. I've seen both before separate but never in succession like so. Simply stunning, as always from Hubble.

[Artifactorfiction]

Wow ... The slow pan in from 01:40 is just superb ...

[captcorajus]

I'm struggling to understand why there are 3 dislikes on this video.

[Eyes_of_Oryx]

Thank you for this upload. We all appreciate your documentaries more than you know :)

[MonsterAssassin]

I wish humans could explore the depths of space ;( it would be wonderful!

[Miumiu]

It's amazing how the Hubble telescope is able to provide us images of these gargantuan structures like the nebulae. Sometimes I even forget how big these things are because I look at the images and I get lost by its beauty.

[Skyhurricane]

Hubble has accomplished quite a bit and let's shoot for 30 years now :)

[kurtcalloway]

Awesome and humbling. What a beautiful creation the universe is!

[SouthwesternEagle]

I was 8 days old when Hubble launched! :)
Because of this, and the extensive knowledge provided by Hubble, its demise will feel like losing a brother to me.

I hope NASA decides to boost Hubble up to L1; that would eliminate the possibility of reentry.

[Billo]

Truly awesome, in all it's glory! Just, jaw dropping views of worlds we will never see in person..

[Healitnow]

For value given, this has been one of sciences greatest investments.

[MrDJCultus]

Thank you God FOR all of this artwork of You ! God be blessed !

[Derpster]

I didn't know Hubble could take 3D images.

[lostsoul]

What is the music during the last half of this video?

[yonotaryono]

speechless ... i really want to know what kind of big bang that resulting this vast universe. do you have 3d animation of the big bang? i would love to see it.

[jaycewesterlo]

I swore they mentioned my last name for the name of the most recent nebula... so close!

[doobsnack]

This is just so amazing.. and I can't believe people can actually thumb this down.. must be religious freaks.

[fandomguy]

WOW I wonder why that "Horse head" even rises up from what would normally be just a giant cloud of gas.

[jaysea]

Ok if these photos were taken in colour.
Why are most pictures sent back to earth from mars or other places in black and white?
Can someone let me know?
If these are true colour pictures from space.
Its truly breathtaking.

[happyrappy]

I think the Milky Way fly though is from vista website. it's a gigapixil image of the milky way. I happend to check it out before I watched this video