NASA’s Hubble Joins LEGO’s Icons Collection

Designing the NASA Hubble Space Telescope was the mission before the mission. Every component needed to push the barriers of engineering, allowing incredible astronomical  data to be recorded across the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths of light. Further, the telescope’s many parts had to be designed so astronauts could repair and upgrade them in orbit via the space shuttle.

Over three-and-a-half decades later, Hubble continues to amaze with its detailed imagery and wealth of scientific information – in large part thanks to the ingenuity behind the telescope’s design.

LEGO collaborated with NASA to create a new set that captures the Hubble Space Telescope in over 1,200 pieces. NASA offered expertise and feedback as LEGO created a detailed replica that allows builders to adjust solar panels, move antennae, and remove exterior panels to reveal Hubble’s primary and secondary mirrors and the instrument bay with its cameras and gyroscopes.

The set also includes miniature versions of three famous Hubble images: the star-forming Pillars of Creation, the spiraling Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Butterfly Nebula, created by a dying star casting off “wings” of gas. These represent just a few of the nearly 1.7 million observations Hubble has captured so far, of everything from planets in our own solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away.

The new LEGO set is the latest addition to the LEGO Icons Collection, which features noteworthy items, buildings, and vehicles across popular culture. This is Hubble’s second appearance in a LEGO set: a previous model highlighted Hubble’s deployment mission, and included both the telescope and the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Both are part of a wide-ranging, decades-long collaboration between the LEGO Group and NASA to design projects that encourage interest in STEM fields and space exploration.

• Hubble's Facebook post about the new LEGO model.