Friday, April 23, 2010

Happy Launchday Hubble

Tomorrow (April 24th) the Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 20 years. It was launched on April 24th 1990 and has been supplying us with incredible science and imagery ever since (well, at least after the first servicing mission corrected the problems with the lenses in 1993). 20 years of hardcore astronomy and still going strong.
I've written about Hubble before and I'm pretty sure I'll do it again. 

HubbleSite.org
On the official Hubble site you can visit the 20th anniversary page or send a message to Hubble.
You can also visit the Hubble gallery and see lots of great images like the one below (which is the 20th anniversary image). Click the image to learn a lot more.

'Hubble's 20th anniversary image shows a mountain of dust and gas rising in the Carina Nebula. The top of a three-light-year tall pillar of cool hydrogen is being worn away by the radiation of nearby stars, while stars within the pillar unleash jets of gas that stream from the peaks.'


Other places
Or you can (re-)read the '10 things you didn't know about Hubble' page on the Bad Astronomy blog, it's pretty cool and there's bound to be something new for you to discover.

Discovery News has a 'Hubble's Best Photos' page you should see as well.

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