Hubble’s Happy Birthday Photo
The Hubble space telescope was launched into low-Earth orbit 28 years ago this week. To celebrate, NASA and the European Space Agency have released brand new images of the Lagoon Nebula.
The Lagoon Nebula is a “star nursery.” Nebulas are cloudy parts of space where stars are often born as gasses pull together by gravitational attraction.
The star of the photo is what NASA calls a “monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our sun.”
The History of Hubble
In 1990 scientists had known for decades that the universe is expanding. But many were stunned when Hubble helped reveal that the cosmic expansion keeps speeding up. The unimaginably vast is growing larger at unimaginable, ever-accelerating speed.
Just how big is it?
In 2004 Hubble scientists released an image of the “Ultra Deep Field.” A close view of just one patch of the night sky, about 10% as wide as the full moon, revealed nearly 10-thousand galaxies.
NASA has a blog where you can learn more of the Hubble telescope's story and see more of the satellite's latest snapshots HERE.
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Photos: NASA