The Best Photos From Hubble’s 35th Year in Space

Apr 24, 2025

Jeremy Gray

A grid of four space images: a blue and orange planet, a colorful nebula with bright center, a dark dusty nebula, and a spiral galaxy with a bright core.

NASA’s space shuttle Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope 380 miles (610 kilometers) above the Earth on April 24, 1990, 35 years ago today. To celebrate Hubble’s birthday, NASA released four breathtaking new images.

“After more than three decades of perusing the universe, Hubble remains a household name — the most well-recognized and scientifically productive telescope in history,” NASA explains. “The Hubble mission is a glowing success story of America’s technological prowess, unyielding scientific curiosity, and a reiteration of our nation’s pioneering spirit.”

Side-by-side images of Mars taken on Dec 28, 2024, at 20:00 UT and Dec 29, 2024, at 13:18 UT, showing planetary surface details and color variations. Dates and times are labeled at the bottom. — “This is a combination of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars taken from December 28th to 30th, 2024. At the midpoint of the observations, Mars was approximately 61 million miles from Earth. Thin water-ice clouds that are apparent in ultraviolet light give the Red Planet a frosty appearance. The icy northern polar cap was experiencing the start of Martian spring. In the left image, the bright orange Tharsis plateau is visible with its chain of dormant volcanoes. The largest volcano, Olympus Mons, pokes above the clouds at the 10 o’clock position near the northwest limb. At an elevation of 70,000 feet, it is 2.5 times the height of Mt. Everest above sea level. Valles Marineris, Mars’ 2,500-mile-long canyon system, is a dark, linear, horizontal feature near center left. In the right image, high-altitude evening clouds can be seen along the planet’s eastern limb. The 1,400-mile-wide Hellas basin, an ancient asteroid impact feature, appears far to the south. Most of the hemisphere is dominated by the classical ‘shark fin’ feature, Syrtis Major.”

Outside the blurry confines of Earth’s atmosphere, Hubble has enchanted scientists and space enthusiasts with its incredible, crystal-clear shots of cosmic objects near and far for the past 35 years. Over the years, scientists have made numerous repairs and upgrades to the venerable space telescope, ensuring its imaging equipment can meet the rigorous demands of modern scientific endeavors.

“Hubble opened a new window to the Universe when it launched 35 years ago. Its stunning imagery inspired people across the globe, and the data behind those images revealed surprises about everything from early galaxies to planets in our own solar system,” says Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

A colorful nebula with a butterfly-like shape glows in space, featuring blue, purple, and orange clouds surrounded by scattered stars against a dark background. — “This Hubble Space Telescope image captures the beauty of the moth-like planetary nebula NGC 2899. This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a nearly 40,000-degree-Fahrenheit white dwarf at the center. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and sculpting the nebula, which is pinched in the middle by a fragmented ring or torus — looking like a half-eaten donut. It has a forest of gaseous ‘pillars’ that point back to the source of radiation and stellar winds. The colors are from glowing hydrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies approximately 4,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela.”

“The fact that it is still operating today is a testament to the value of our flagship observatories, and provides critical lessons for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which we plan to be serviceable in the spirit of Hubble,” Domagal-Goldman continues.

The 24,000-pound observatory had a rough start to its life in April 1990 when scientists discovered a surprising flaw in the telescope’s eight-foot primary mirror. Astronauts came to the rescue three years later, addressing the issue and improving the telescope’s optical performance.

Dark clouds of interstellar dust and gas create dramatic shapes against a backdrop of stars and glowing nebulae in deep space, with some red and yellow highlights visible throughout the cosmic scene. — “This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a small portion of the Rosette Nebula, a huge star-forming region spanning 100 light-years across and located 5,200 light-years away. Hubble zooms into a small portion of the nebula that is only four light-years across (the approximate distance between our Sun and the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system.) Dark clouds of hydrogen gas laced with dust are silhouetted across the image. The clouds are being eroded and shaped by the seething radiation from the cluster of larger stars in the center of the nebula (NGC 2440). An embedded star seen at the tip of a dark cloud in the upper right portion of the image is launching jets of plasma that are crashing into the cold cloud around it. The resulting shock wave is causing a red glow. The colors come from the presence of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.”

Since it was deployed 35 years ago, Hubble has performed nearly 1.7 million observations and viewed about 55,000 astronomical targets. Hubble’s discoveries and observations have directly contributed to over 22,000 papers and 1.3 million citations as of February 2025. Hubble’s data, all of which is carefully archived, amounts to more than 400 terabytes. It was NASA’s largest astrophysics mission dataset until the new James Webb Space Telescope.

Thanks to Hubble’s longevity, astronomers have been able to observe the same targets repeatedly over more than three decades, providing unparalleled observations of cosmic variability.

A bright, glowing spiral galaxy with a luminous core and swirling blue arms filled with stars and dust, set against a backdrop of deep space scattered with distant galaxies and stars. — “NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured in exquisite detail a face-on view of a remarkable-looking galaxy. NGC 5335 is categorized as a flocculent spiral galaxy with patchy streamers of star formation across its disk. There is a striking lack of well-defined spiral arms that are commonly found among galaxies, including our Milky Way. A notable bar structure slices across the center of the galaxy. The bar channels gas inwards toward the galactic center, fueling star formation. Such bars are dynamic in galaxies and may come and go over two-billion-year intervals. They appear in about 30 percent of observed galaxies, including our Milky Way.”

Among Hubble’s extensive list of scientific breakthroughs, the space telescope has looked exceptionally far back into space, helped scientists measure the Universe’s rate of expansion, found supermassive black holes, and made the first measurement of an exoplanet’s atmosphere. Hubble also helped scientists discover dark matter, research that won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

While the Hubble Space Telescope is incredible, astronomers are excited about its planned successor: the Habitable Worlds Observatory. This telescope “will have a significantly larger mirror than Hubble’s to study the Universe in visible and ultraviolet light. It will be significantly sharper than Hubble and up to 100 times more sensitive to starlight.”

Image credits: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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