Happy Birthday to the Hubble telescope!
It seems amazing to me that it was a whole sixteen years ago when it was launched into space on the back of the space shuttle Discovery. My, how our young ones grow up so fast. It caused us major trauma in its early years with its dicky mirror, but with some clever tweaking has gone on to stream us not just useful scientific data but some of the most breath-taking images of our universe yet.
To celebrate the occasion, NASA and the European Space Agency have released a stunning new image of the galaxy Messier 82 – the "Cigar Galaxy" – and its wing-like clouds of glowing hot gas (pictured, but select this link for a larger version).
Was it a tremendous waste of money? No, the futile war in Iraq is a tremendous waste of money - and lives. By way of contrast, Hubble if nothing else (and for astrophysicists it is a big other else) has posted snapshots of the cosmos back to us that have enriched our perception and place in the universe, brought joy to our eyes and hearts, filled us with awe and humbleness.
We've known for a couple of centuries now just how vast and full this expanding ball of space we inhabit is, but nothing surely has brought it home than the deep-space panoramas and the thousands of pictures of galaxies filled with zillions of stars.
Here's looking forward to its twenty-first birthday and beyond, which with a bit of servicing it should make. See this New Scientist article dated 24th April about its future prospects.
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