Hubble Space Telescope

8 min read

NASA’s Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

A montage of Hubble Space Telescope images of our solar system's four giant outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, taken under the OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) program over 10 years, from 2014 to 2024.

2 min read

Hubble Spots a Spiral in the Celestial River

A spiral galaxy filling the view. Its disk holds many bright red spots where stars are forming, dark reddish threads of dust that obscure light, and bluish glowing areas that hold concentrations of older stars. It has a large, glowing yellow oval area at the center, from which two spiral arms wind through the galaxy’s disk. One side of the disk appears rounded (bottom of the image) while the opposite side appears somewhat squared-off (top of the image).

4 min read

NASA’s Hubble Takes the Closest-Ever Look at a Quasar

A Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) coronagraph image of quasar 3C 273. It looks the same as the WFPC2 image, but in shades of blue. A black circle (labeled “core light blocked”) blocks the glare of the quasar. Blue-colored filamentary material is visible near the black hole. The extragalactic jet is still visible.

2 min read

Hubble Captures an Edge-On Spiral with Curve Appeal

A spiral galaxy seen directly from the side, such that its disk looks like a narrow diagonal band across the image. A band of dark dust covers the disk in the center most of the way out to the ends, and the disk glows around that. In the center of the galaxy, a whitish circle of light bulges out above and below the disk. Each end of the disk curves slightly. The background is black and mostly empty.

Artist's concept of early stages of the young star FU Orionis outburst. The star, a bright yellow sphere near the center, and its fluffy disk of gas and dust are slightly tilted, extending from the top left corner to the bottom right. The swirling disk is bright yellow close to the star and gradually transitions to dark orange moving toward the edges of the frame. The top left and right corners reveal a black, starless background.

5 min read

NASA’s Hubble Finds Sizzling Details About Young Star FU Orionis

Article3 weeks ago

6 min read

NASA’s Chandra, Hubble Tune Into ‘Flame-Throwing’ Guitar Nebula

Article3 weeks ago

In the center is a large, oval-shaped galaxy, with a shining, ringed core. Left of its center is a second, smaller galaxy with two spiral arms. The galaxy pair is so close that they appear to be merging: a tail of material with a few glowing spots connects from one of the smaller galaxy’s spiral arms to the larger galaxy. A faint halo surrounds both galaxies. Several stars are visible around the pair.

2 min read

Hubble Takes a Look at Tangled Galaxies

Article4 weeks ago

A whitish, whirlpool-like galaxy at middle of top edge, and a tadpole-shaped structure sweeps from left to right across lower half. A label pointing to outer, left of galaxy reads “Earth.” Faint, purple haze labeled “Milky Way Halo” surrounds galaxy and stretches to graphic’s edges. The tadpole-shaped object is the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, with its own halo and streaming tail. Semi-circular, progressively darker layers of purple labeled “LMC Halo” surround the LMC, which appears roughly circular, with a central, light-yellow bar. Cloud-like features sprinkled with white specks surround this bar. Trailing the LMC is a large, tail-like feature labeled “Stream.” At the bottom left corner of graphic are several small, bright points of light labeled “Quasars.” Three light blue lines point from the label “Earth” through the LMC’s halo, and to three corresponding quasars. At the bottom, right corner is the label “Artist’s Concept.”

5 min read

NASA’s Hubble Sees Aftermath of Galaxy’s Scrape with Milky Way

Article4 weeks ago

Celebrating 35 Years of Discovery

Hubble's Night Sky Observing Challenge

Celebrate 35 years of Hubble observations with our year-long stargazing adventure!

Each month in 2025, the Hubble team will release a new set of objects for you to explore. Compare your view to Hubble’s, then submit your observations to the Astronomical League to earn recognition for your achievement.

Join the celebration

Dark blue starry night sky. People looking through a telescope and at the sky silhouetted against the starry backdrop.

Gather your family and friends and explore the night sky with Hubble!

NASA

Hubble's Latest Features

Hubble's Inside the Image: The Veil Nebula

Dr. Ken Carpenter delves into the stunning details of the Veil Nebula and explains how Hubble's observations shed light on the complex processes involved in the aftermath of a star's explosive death.

Hubble Science: Shoemaker-Levy 9 Interplanetary Impact

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 left an indelible mark on our understanding of the solar system when it collided with Jupiter. Discover the crucial role Hubble played in capturing this dramatic impact.

The galaxy cluster Stephan's Quintet is imaged behind this video thumbnail. The cluster holds galaxies in colors of reddish-yellow and bright white.

Hubble’s Inside the Image: Stephan's Quintet

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman explores the intricate details of Stephan's Quintet and discusses how Hubble's observations continue to deepen our understanding of galactic behavior and the universe.

Hubble on the NASA App

NASA's free mobile application puts Hubble interactives, resources, and information at your fingertips, including an augmented reality model exclusive to the NASA app. Use this app to stay up to date on all things Hubble!

Explore More

Framed colorful lighted galaxy images hanging along a tan wall.

Hubble Posters

Downloadable versions of Hubble's iconic images ready to print and hang on your classroom, office, science center, or home walls.

Explore More

Hubble's Inside the Image: Cat's Eye Nebula

In this video, Dr. Ken Carpenter delves into the beauty of this cosmic jewel and discusses the critical role Hubble plays in unraveling the secrets of stellar evolution and the lifecycle of stars.

Mosaic of the Pillars of Creation visualization model, composed of 4 rectangular strips oriented 45 degrees clockwise from vertical. Strips alternate between Hubble and Webb views of the visualization model, with each strip labeled: “Hubble” at lower right corners of first and third strips; “Webb” at upper left corners of the second and fourth strips. Webb strips have drop shadows that make it look like they are overlaid on top of larger Hubble image. Mosaic shows 3 vertical structures (pillars) of thick smoke-like material. Pillar edges are glowing, with thin wisps of material moving away into space. In Hubble strips, pillars are dark brown and opaque, on greenish blue background. In Webb strips, pillars are bright orange to brown with a distinct area of bright red at the top of middle pillar. A red star appears at the tip of a peak in the left pillar and the background is deep blue.

Pillars of Creation Visualization from Hubble and Webb Telescopes

Made famous in 1995 by Hubble, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula have captured imaginations worldwide with their arresting, ethereal beauty.

Illustration of various space-based and ground-based telescopes.

Hubble's Partners in Science

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has a long history of working with other observatories to explore our universe.

Background image: a field of galaxies against a black background. Text in white: Refsdal: Hubble's Inside the Image

Hubble's Inside the Image: Lensed Supernova Refsdal

Dr. Brian Welch explains Hubble's image of a massive galaxy cluster creating a gravitational lens that magnified the same supernova exploding four different times!

Hubble's Inside the Image: Herbig-Haro Jet HH 24

A dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust obscures a newborn star that is shooting twin jets out into space. Dr. Kenneth Carpenter explains this breathtaking image.

Video thumbnail for a video about Hubble's clock rollover. Background holds a calendar with red numbers. The foreground holds an image of the Hubble Space Telescope. Title reads: It's Time to Change Hubble's Clock

It's Time to Change Hubble's Clock

Remember that Y2K thing a few years ago? Well, it turns out Hubble has something similar, only Hubble’s clock restarts every 6,213 days, 18 hours, 48 minutes, and 31.875 seconds, or roughly every 17 years.

What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday?

Hubble explores the universe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That means it has observed some fascinating cosmic wonder every day of the year, including on your birthday.

Check Out Your Birthday!

More Hubble Online Activities

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What is Hubble Observing?

See the area of sky Hubble is investigating.

Name that Nebula!

Match nebulae with their names

Faint band of stars, gas, and dust stretches from left to right across the frame. This band is a representation of our galaxy as seen from space, edge-on. Colorful icons representing the types of objects Hubble has observed litter the frame: blue stars, orange spiral for galaxies, pink clouds for nebulae, yellow swirling top for exotic objects, and a green circle for exoplanets.

Hubble's Skymap

Get a Hubble's-eye-view of cosmic objects

Hubble Spacecraft 360 Degree Tour

Virtually Tour Hubble in orbit

A title slide that says "astronaut Fun Facts"

Hubble Astronaut Fun Facts

Play this trivia game and test your knowledge!

360 image of Hubble's "Space Telescope Operations Control Center" The image is stretched because it is designed for 360 degree viewing. The image shows many desks within the control center with data on their screens.

Control Center 360-Degree Tour

Take a virtual tour of Hubble's operations center

Featured Story

NASA’s Hubble Sees a Stellar Volcano

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided a dramatic and colorful close-up look at one of the most rambunctious stars in…

Read the Story

A bright binary star surrounded by a colorful loops of nebula on the black background of space. One loop is vertical the other is horizontal across the center of the image.

A New View of the Universe

How did a telescope become a household name and change how we look at the cosmos forever?

With over 1.5 million observations and 20,000+ papers published on its discoveries, Hubble is the most productive science mission in the history of NASA. Yet the story of Hubble’s success starts before NASA even existed. It includes adversity, human ingenuity, heroic spacewalks, risk taking, and discovery. Learn the background of one NASA’s most famous missions.

Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis snapped a still photo of the Hubble Space Telescope after it was grappled by the shuttle's Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System during Servicing Mission 4. The mission left the telescope at the peak of its scientific capabilities, allowing it to continue furthering our knowledge of the cosmos.

NASA

Science, Technology, Culture: Hubble's Growing Legacy

From cultural touchstone to technological influencer, Hubble has left its mark on Earth

Hubble science has rewritten astronomy textbooks as its discoveries continually provide deeper explanations of astronomical objects and unveil new phenomena. But science isn’t the only way Hubble has impacted our world. From image detectors that are now used in the fight against breast cancer to science images that are used in Hollywood blockbuster movies, Hubble is embedded in our everyday lives and pop culture.

The Hubble Telescope in space gripped by the space shuttle's robotic arm.

Held by the space shuttle Discovery’s robotic arm, Hubble is unfurling its solar arrays as it hovers over Earth during its deployment in April 1990. The technology in Hubble and in its ground system has been used for numerous other benefits down here on Earth.

NASA

Discovering the Unimagined

Hubble has not only furthered our knowledge of the known universe, it's shocked the astronomical world with never-before-seen phenomena.

When Hubble was launched, no planets around other stars had been discovered, Pluto had only one known moon, and dark energy was not even a concept. With over three decades of observations, Hubble has changed humanity’s understanding of the universe. We now know that black holes exist at the center of almost all galaxies, Jupiter’s massive storm – the Great Red spot – is now shrinking, light can echo just like sound, and the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Learn about Hubble’s great discoveries, understand the basics behind Hubble’s scientific capabilities, and explore its incredible images of the cosmos.

a packed field of galaxies and curved blue streaks

Abell 370 is a massive galaxy cluster whose immense gravity distorts and magnifies the light of galaxies behind it. Hubble has used it to push its vision beyond its usual capabilities and see even farther galaxies. Such capabilities have allowed Hubble to change our understanding of all aspects of astronomy.

NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz and the HFF Team (STScI)

An Observatory for the Ages

Even after three decades in the harsh environment of space, Hubble is still at the peak of its scientific capability

Designed and built in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Hubble has far surpassed its 15-year life expectancy and produced science never thought possible at the time of its launch. Learn about Hubble’s unique design, the human spaceflight missions that have extended its life, and the ground operations that keep it as productive as ever.