It’s not often that telescopes suspended in space have landmark birthdays like this one.
Launched on April 24, 1990, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has orbited at about 320 miles above Earth’s surface, according to the space agency’s website.
The telescope journeyed into space attached to the space shuttle Discovery.
The Hubble Space Telescope hovers at the boundary of Earth and space in this picture, taken after Hubble’s second servicing mission in 1997.Courtesy of NASA.
Nicknamed “the People’s Telescope,” Hubble has made over 1.6 million observations of celestial objects since it was sent into space.
NASA even offers the opportunity for people to access what photos Hubble took on their birthdays, given that the telescope “explores the universe 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” NASA stated
The telescope was named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, who studied the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy using the Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles in 1923, according to the observatory’s website. Hubble’s observations led to new theories on the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang, including what’s referred to as Hubble’s Constant.
The telescope has taken a wide variety of photos documenting celestial bodies, from Earth’s neighboring planets like Mars to faraway nebulae trapped in space and time, like the Horsehead and Crab nebulae.
This also includes the iconic orange and blue Helix Nebula, which was later edited to resemble the human eye and featured in the title card for the 2014 series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” hosted by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
NASA will continue to celebrate the telescope’s “birthday” as it plans to release new images, videos, educational materials, interactive web apps, and more, according to a statement.
“From planets in our own solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away, Hubble’s iconic images remain a scientific and cultural asset for the whole world,” NASA stated.
