Photos: 30th Anniversary of the Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Mamta Popat
Photojournalist
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The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. Hubble's orbit outside of the Earth's atmosphere allows it to photograph extremely high-resolution images with very little background light. This allows images of galaxies, stars and a deeper understanding on the universe.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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The Hubble Space Telescope floats above the Earth after being serviced by the space shuttle Discovery in February 1997. During the mission, astronauts installed a new near-infrared instrument developed by scientists at the University of Arizona. (NASA photo)
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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The Hubble Space Telescope is released for the first time by the space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Hubble drifts over the Earth after its release by the crew of the shuttle Atlantis on May 19, 2009, following the fifth -- and so far the last -- mission to service the orbiting telescope.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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A photo taken by the crew of Columbia shows the Hubble Space Telescope in the shuttle's payload bay after five days of servicing in March 2002. During the mission, astronauts installed a new experimental cooling system to revive the telescope's near-infrared camera, which was developed by scientists at the University of Arizona.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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The space shuttle Discovery lights up the night on Feb. 11, 1997, as it lifts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a mission to install new instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope, including on developed by the University of Arizona.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Workers at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in January 2002 wheel a package across the floor containing with a new cooling system that will soon be sent into space to revive the University of Arizona-designed near-infrared camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA photo)
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Astronauts install a new cooling system on the University of Arizona-designed near-infrared camera on the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2002.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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A photo from January 1997 shows workers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida packaging a near-infrared camera developed by the University of Arizona before its launch into space.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Payload commander Mark C. Lee, right, and mission specialist Steven L. Smith service the Hubble Space Telescope from the bay of the shuttle Discovery on Feb. 18, 1997. Earlier in the mission, astronauts equipped Hubble with a new infrared camera designed by scientists at the University of Arizona.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Object name: M 82, Messier 82, NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy. -- NASA's Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra space observatories teamed up to create this multi-wavelength, false-colored view of the M82 galaxy. The lively portrait celebrates Hubble's "sweet sixteen" birthday. X-ray data recorded by Chandra appears in blue; infrared light recorded by Spitzer appears in red; Hubble's observations of hydrogen emission appear in orange, and the bluest visible light appears in yellow-green.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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This undated handout photo provided by NASA, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies called Arp 147. The Hubble Space Telescope is working again, taking stunning cosmic photos after a one-month breakdown. The Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said the $10 billion telescope is as good as it was before a shutdown in late September. That glitch scotched plans for spacewalking astronauts to upgrade the telescope this month.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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OBJECT NAME: M51, Messier 51, Whirlpool Galaxy, NGC 5194. --- M51, whose name comes from being the 51st entry in Charles Messier's catalog, is considered to be one of the classic examples of a spiral galaxy. At a distance of about 30 million light years from Earth, it is also one of the brightest spirals in the night sky. A composite image of M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy, shows the majesty of its structure in a dramatic new way through several of NASA's orbiting observatories. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals point-like sources (purple) that are black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems. Chandra also detects a diffuse glow of hot gas that permeates the space between the stars. Optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (green) and infrared emission from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red) both highlight long lanes in the spiral arms that consist of stars and gas laced with dust. A view of M51 with the GALEX telescope shows hot, young stars that produce lots of ultraviolet energy (blue).
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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This eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent's head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each "fingertip" is somewhat larger than our own solar system. This photo was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas.
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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Within the tempestuous Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain.” This three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 in 2010, is made up primarily of dust and gas, and exhibits signs of intense star-forming activity. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green) and sulfur (red).
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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This atmospheric image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a dark, gloomy scene in the constellation of Gemini (the Twins). The subject of this image confused astronomers when it was first studied — rather than being classified as a single object, it was instead recorded as two objects, owing to its symmetrical lobed structure (known as NGC 2371 and NGC 2372, though sometimes referred to together as NGC 2371/2).
30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
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This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (The Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight. Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago. Open clusters tend to contain fewer and younger stars than their more compact globular cousins, and Messier 11 is no exception: at its centre lie many blue stars, the hottest and youngest of the cluster’s few thousand stellar residents. The lifespans of open clusters are also relatively short compared to those of globular ones; stars in open clusters are spread further apart and are thus not as strongly bound to each other by gravity, causing them to be more easily and quickly drawn away by stronger gravitational forces. As a result Messier 11 is likely to disperse in a few million years as its members are ejected one by one, pulled away by other celestial objects in the vicinity.
Mamta Popat
Photojournalist
As featured on
When Hubble blasted off from Earth 30 years ago April 24, University of Arizona scientists were already working on its new set of eyes.
