The Hubble Space Telescope just celebrated the 30th anniversary of its launch. A joint effort of NASA and the European Space Agency, Hubble orbits Earth from outside of the distorting effects of the atmosphere. This has allowed it to capture some amazing images and has led to unprecedented understanding of space.
Since April 24th 1990, Hubble has been in operation 24/7, gathering 1.4 million observations of things like exoplanets, and distant galaxies. The data collected have led to discoveries about black holes, gravitational waves, dark matter, and much more. It has spotted things both inside and outside of our solar system that were previously not known to exist.
NASA has collected 366 of its most stunning images and is showcasing them on its What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday website. Select a date and NASA will show you what it saw. You can share the image on social media using the hashtag #Hubble30.
You can also see some of Hubble’s amazing images and read more about the history and future of Hubble in this CNN article Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 30 Years of Discoveries and Awe-Inspiring Images. Find out even more through the MVCC library collections on Hubble, space exploration, and astronomy. You can use the limiters on the left of your results to select e-resources.