Hubble Highlights

Greatest Hits From The Last Eight Years

The Hubble Space Telescope has established itself as a premier astronomical observatory that continues to make dramatic observations and discoveries at the forefront of astronomy.

Following the successful First and Second Servicing Missions, the Telescope has achieved all of its original objectives. Among a long list of achievements, Hubble has:

• Improved our knowledge of the size and age of the universe
• Provided decisive evidence of the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies
• Clearly revealed the galactic environments in which quasars reside
• Detected objects with coherent structure (protogalaxies) close to the time of the origin of the universe
• Provided unprecedentedly clear images and spectra of the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter
• Detected a large number of protoplanetary disks around stars
• Elucidated the various processes by which stars form
• Provided the first map of the surface of Pluto
• Routinely monitored the meteorology of planets beyond the orbit of Earth
• Made the first detection of an ultraviolet high-energy laser in Eta Carinae. After the Servicing Missions 3A and 3B, the Hubble Space Telescope will view the universe anew with significantly expanded scientific and technological capabilities.

A STAR IS BORN	FUNNEL CLOUDS IN SPACE	DYING IN COLOR
Towers of sculpted gas in the Eagle nebula (M16) are actually cocoons for embryonic stars.	Giant funnel-shaped clouds of gas (upper left) were captured in another stellar "maternity ward," the Lagoon nebula (M8).	Rings of gas surround the dying star NGC 6543, nicknamed the Cat's Eye.
STELLAR EXHAUST	A "ZOOM LENS" IN SPACE	COSMIC COLLISION CREATES STARS
The dying star M2-9 is nicknamed the Twin Jet nebula because the two tubes of gas streaming from it behave like exhaust from a jet engine.	The arc-like pattern spread across the picture like a spider web is an illusion caused by the gravitational field of a cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. This process, called gravitational lensing, magnifies, brightens, and distorts images of objects that lie far beyond the cluster, providing a powerful "zoom lens" for viewing galaxies that are so far away they could not normally be observed with the largest available telescopes.	A collision between two spiral galaxies has spawned brilliant bursts of star birth.
BALLOONS OF GAS	GASEOUS "HULA-HOOPS"	GALLERY OF GALAXIES
A pair of billowing dust and gas clouds have been cast off by the massive dying star Eta Carinae.	A large pair of gaseous rings frame a glowing halo of gas surrounding the massive dying star Supernova 1987A.	Hubble peers back more than 10 billion years to reveal at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of development.
SATURN'S LIGHT SHOW	HOW'S THE WEATHER?	FOOD FOR A BLACK HOLE
Saturn's north and south poles display spectacular oval-shaped curtains of light, called auroras, which were captured in ultraviolet light by Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).	Hubble has been used to monitor weather conditions on Mars.	A spiral-shaped disk of dust is feeding a massive black hole in the galaxy, NGC 4261.

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