JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The iconic Hubble Space Telescope turned 30 years old on Friday, and to commemorate its three decades of discovery, NASA is actually giving us a gift.
On April 24, 1990, NASA launched the world’s first space-based optical telescope, named after American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.
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“The Hubble Space Telescope has actually changed humanity’s view of the universe because it’s perched in an orbit above Earth’s atmosphere. It gets much clearer images and we can get from the ground," said Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, Hubble senior project scientist.
For the telescope’s 30th birthday, NASA has released a new image.
“This is a stunning image of a star forming nursery in a little satellite galaxy near the Milky Way," Wiseman said.
🔥 @NASAHubble has given us a new image of a nursery for stars in a nearby galaxy to the Milky Way. ✨
— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) April 24, 2020
🤔 Have questions about this new image? Leave them in the comments below! Join Hubble experts later today from 2-4 p.m. EDT for a Q&A.#Hubble30 #HappyBirthdayHubble pic.twitter.com/mhJyJmEO4x
The blue colors represent heated oxygen and the red color represents hydrogen and other atoms.
“This whole image shows you also how the winds and the energetic flows from these new stars are sculpting their surroundings and show us how dynamic our universe is and how pristine these images from the Hubble Space Telescope are even three decades after its launch.”
The first image received from Hubble was of Star Cluster NGC 3532 on May 20, 1990.
“ It was realized that the beautiful mirror inside Hubble was slightly misshapen and created an aberration in the images," Wiseman said.
The image was a little blurry, as you can see, but the first servicing mission in Dec 1993 fixed the issue.
“The last shuttle servicing mission in 2009 was extremely successful, so now we have this suite of very powerful scientific instruments on Hubble as well as good batteries and gyroscopes and the things we need to keep Hubble able to point and do its work," Wiseman said.
Hubble has given us a front row seat to many new observations in space, including dark matter and atmospheres of planets outside our solar system called exoplanets.
“When Hubble was designed, we didn’t even know of any exoplanets,” Wiseman said. "Thanks to NASA facilities like the Kepler and test telescopes, thousands of these have been detected.
Another birthday present -- you can now go to NASA’s website, type in your birthday and see all the images that Hubble has received on that specific day in previous years.