Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 25 Years of Unveiling the Universe

April 23, 2015 9:15AM (EDT)Release ID: 2015-12
Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 25 Years of Unveiling the Universe

Summary

NASA and ESA are celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's silver anniversary of 25 years in space by unveiling some of nature's own fireworks – a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides inside a vibrant stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina. The comparatively young, 2-million-year-old star cluster contains some of our galaxy's hottest, brightest, and most massive stars. The largest stars are unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light and hurricane-force winds that etch away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud. This creates a fantasy celestial landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys.

Full Article

A new window to the universe opened for humanity on the morning of April 24, 1990, when NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was lofted into space, riding atop a Promethean flame from the space shuttle Discovery. "Even the most optimistic person to whom you could have spoken back in 1990 couldn't have predicted the degree to which Hubble would re-write our astrophysics and planetary science textbooks," said Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator and pilot of the mission that brought Hubble into orbit. "A quarter century later, Hubble has fundamentally changed human understanding of the universe and our ...

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