Hubble Space Telescope Turns 20 Years Old

Wow, 20 years of amazing images. This video offers some of the most amazing images as of 2007.



Here are a few classic images (with explanations) from Starts with a Bang, where you can read more and see more pictures in honor of the 20the birthday of the Hubble Space Telescope.

1.) SN 1987a. In 1987, a supernova went off in the Large Magellanic Cloud. As far as we can tell, that's the closest supernova to us since 1604! The image above is what that supernova remnant looks like as of 2007, the most spectacular image of a recent supernova ever taken!

2.) Planetary Nebulae. When our Sun dies, it's going to blow off its outer layers of gas and collapse into a white dwarf. Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we have unprecedented pictures of what these planetary nebulae look like. Some are asymmetric, such as NGC 2818 (above), while others are almost perfectly spherical, like the Ring Nebula (below).

There are even other cases too, like the famous Cat's Eye Nebula (below), which is maybe the most spectacular one to my eye.

Tags: Space, Science, Photography, Hubble Space Telescope, 2oth Birthday, Starts with a Bang