Happy 20th Birthday, Hubble!
Not the man, but the space telescope.
Exactly 20 years ago yesterday, the Space Shuttle Discovery released the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth orbit. Initially it suffered from a focusing problem, but once the problem was solved, it has since returned tons of data that revolutionised nearly all areas of astronomy.
Hubble is not just for the scientists. Those out of the world pictures returned by Hubble have taken away a lot of breath of the public and scientists alike, such as this present by Hubble for us in conjunction with its 20th birthday:
Nicknamed the “Mystic Mountain”, this image shows a small portion of the Carina Nebula, capturing the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars.
Click here for a video on Two Decade of Discovery by Hubble. Enjoy the video and see how this great observatory has changed our view of the universe.
My Dark Sky 