Hubble's Wildest - NASA Science

On the heels of Hubble’s 34^th anniversary, we explored some of Hubble’s wildest and weirdest observations of our universe during its decades-long mission. We focused on six interesting images and took a deep dive into the science behind them on social media.

Hubble's Wildest Images

Two sets of rings in orange and gold stacked one above the other form the shape of a hourglass. At image center, where the two sets of rings overlap, is an area of white, green and black dust in a shape that is similar to the human eye.

Hourglass Nebula (MyCn18)

This young planetary nebula holds intricate pattern of gas and dust in its walls.

Two edge-on, spiral galaxies appear to be at right angles to each other. One extending from the lower left to the upper right. The other has distinct spiral arms and dust lanes and extends from just left of center to the lower right. Black background dotted with stars.

NGC 3314

While these two overlapping galaxies appear in the midst of a collision, the two are in a chance alignment from our vantage point.

A galaxy, large and occupying most of the view from the center. The whole galaxy is made of smooth, diffuse light. The galaxy is surrounded by a smoky gray halo. Many stars shine around the galaxy, on a black background.

NGC 6684

The lens-shaped galaxy NGC 6684 is around 44 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pavo.

Gravitational lensing distorts Hubble's view of this spiral galaxy in the Abell 68 cluster.

Space Invader in Abell 68

This alien-looking mirage is the result of the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy cluster warping space and distorting the light of more distant galaxies.

Two galaxies, each has a bright-white core. Their cores are very close together. They are surrounded by light blue gas, dust, and stars that form a ring around the cores.

Arp-Madore 2026-424

Galaxy collisions are common — especially back in the young universe — most of them are not head-on smashups, like the collision that likely created this system.

A black background is punctuated with distant stars and galaxies. One bright foreground star sits just to the right of image center. Slightly above and to the left of image center is a faint, bluish-green spiral.

LL Pegasi Spiral

A pair of stars orbiting each other creates an intriguing spiral pattern.

Learn how we make these beautiful images from Hubble data.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; Lead Producer: Miranda Chabot

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