By Alle McMahon
Updated Tue at 3:08pm
PHOTO: The galaxy M104, nicknamed the Sombrero Galaxy, located around 29 million light-years away. (hubble25th.org)RELATED STORY: Hubble captures most detailed image ever seen of Andromeda galaxy
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MAP: United States
The Hubble Space telescope, hailed by astronomers as one of the most productive scientific instruments ever constructed, is this year celebrating its 25th year in space.
The telescope has provided more than 1 million observations to date, many of which have fundamentally altered our understanding of the universe.
Most notably, it is thanks to the Hubble that astronomers are able to estimate that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.
It is also responsible for the discovery of the Hubble Deep Field, a tiny speck of sky that revealed a zoo of about 3,000 galaxies — some as old as 10 billion years — as well as supermassive black holes.
The telescope whirls around Earth at 28,000 kilometres an hour, taking 96 minutes to complete one orbit.
It was named after Dr Edwin Hubble, the astronomer who in 1929 discovered that the universe was expanding. It was this notion that formed the basis of the Big Bang theory.
Below are some of the most extraordinary images that the Hubble has captured over the years.
PHOTO: A halo of light surrounds V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon). (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: The Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: The Orion Nebula, which is located 1,300 light-years away. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: Nebula NGC 6302, which lies around 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: The Horsehead Nebula, located about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Orion. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: The Carina Nebula, a cloud of gas and dust where a star birth and death is taking place, located around 7,500 light-years away. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: Two spiral galaxies known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, nicknamed the Antennae Galaxies. (hubble25th.org)
PHOTO: A tiny slice of the universe, speckled with around 10,000 galaxies. This portrait of the universe's history is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (or HUDF) and is a minuscule patch of sky first targeted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002 and revisited over and over again since then. (hubble25th.org)From other news sites:
CNN: Hubble Space Telescope turns 25
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