Excerpted from “Hubble’s Greatest Hits”, by Timothy Ferris. Full article in National Geographic, April 2015, on newsstands now. Copyright © 2015. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Photos courtesy of Zoltan Levay, the imaging team leader at Space Telescope Science Institute and National Geographic. See more photos for this article here on National Geographic.
It didn’t amount to much at first.
Credit: National Geographic
Launched into orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, amid flurries of hope and hype, the Hubble Space Telescope promptly faltered. Rather than remaining locked on its celestial targets, it trembled and shook, quaking like a photophobic vampire whenever sunlight struck its solar panels. Opening its protective front door to let starlight in perturbed the telescope so badly that it fell into an electronic coma. Worst of all, Hubble turned out to be myopic. Its primary light-gathering mirror, eight feet in diameter and said to be the smoothest large object ever fashioned by humans, had been figured perfectly wrong.
Cosmic Fireworks
NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee 2
Sparkling with energy, a cluster of young stars lights up a cavity in the roiling dust of the Tarantula Nebula. The many-legged nebula is located in one of Earth’s closest galactic neighbors, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Star Power
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 looks through the Horsehead Nebula in a uniquely detailed infrared image. A classic target of astronomy, the nebula normally appears dark against a bright background, but Hubble penetrates the shroud of interstellar dust and gas.
Celestial Wings
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Gas from a dying star resembles a butterfly, its lacy wings formed by the ejection of its outer layers. Unique and colorful planetary nebulae like NGC 6302 have provided some of Hubble’s most popular images.
Echo of Light
NASA, ESA and H.E. Bond (STScI)
Over several months in 2002, Hubble captured a cosmic spectacle—a ragged balloon of dust that appeared to expand around the star V838 Monocerotis. In reality, an expanding blast of the star’s light was illuminating the dust cloud.