The Hubble Space Telescope was put into orbit around Earth in 1990. It has spent the last 22 years floating around our tiny planet, and has taken thousands of the most bad-ass photos ever produced.
Here are the top 15 (not in any order):
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| A recent, extremely rare side-view of a warped galaxy |
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Another recent image, this of a cluster of three galaxies.
The photo clearly showcases an assortment of stars, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. |
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| Two separate galaxies that are in the process of colliding with each other. |
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| A barred spiral galaxy known as NGC 6217 |
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| Probably the most well-known Hubble photo to date, this image is known as the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field". Astronomers found a tiny, dark pocket in the sky where they could see past all the light from Milky Way stars, and gaze deep into the universe. Thus, every single point of light in this image is an entire galaxy. Over 10,000 of them. |
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"Crab Nebula"
The remnant of a massive supernova. |
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| The "Sombrero Galaxy" |
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| The "Orion Nebula" |
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Saturn, and 4 of it's moons:
Top right- Titan. Far left- Enceladus and Dione. Far right- Mimas |
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"The Pillars of Creation"
Massive (over 4 light-years tall) pillars of gas and dust- the birthplace of new stars. |
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"Mystic Mountain"
3 light-years tall, and home to countless infant stars. The streaks of smoke shooting out of the upper peaks are actually jets of gas being rocketed into space by forming stars. The nebula is literally being eaten from within. |
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| "Tarantula Nebula" |
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The "flocculent" spiral galaxy NGC 2841
Flocculent spiral galaxies have tiny, short spiral arms, as opposed to the
huge and well-defined limbs of, say, The Milky Way |
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"Thrackeray's Globules"
are located in the busy star-forming region of IC 2944.
First discovered in 1950 |
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This immense, billowing tower of gas and dust juts out of the Eagle Nebula.
It is almost 10 light-years in length... just about twice the distance from our sun to the nearest star. |
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