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NASA1 of 26
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided more than one million "observations" - the term NASA uses to describe images, measurements and other kinds of data the spacecraft collects. The Earth-orbiting telescope is about 370 miles above the planet and circles the globe once every 97 minutes. At approximately 42 feet long and 13 feet wide, Hubble is roughly the size of a school bus.
Hubble is expected to continue sending back stunning high-resolution images until 2016-2017. Its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is set to launch in 2018.
Click through to see 25 of the most incredible Hubble images.
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NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)2 of 26
NASA released this image of the Sombrero Galaxy, located 28 million light-years from Earth, on Oct. 2, 2003.
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NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)3 of 26Hubble released this infrared image of the Horsehead Nebula on April 19, 2013, to celebrate the telescope's 23rd year in orbit.
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NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team4 of 26At the center of this stunning celestial butterfly is a dying star that was once five times the mass of the sun. This image of planetary nebula NGC 6302 was taken on July 27, 2009.
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NASA; ESA; Hans Van Winckel (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium); and Martin Cohen (University of California, Berkeley)5 of 26Nebula HD 44179 is known as the Red Rectangle because of its unique shape and color (as seen by ground-based telescopes). Hubble released this image on May 11, 2004, revealing ladder-like structures surrounding the dying star.
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Reta Beebe, Amy Simon (New Mexico State Univ.), and NASA6 of 26In this image released on March 31, 1995, a cluster of three white, oval-shaped storms are visible to the left of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
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NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team7 of 26
This image shows the tip of a three-light-year-long pillar of gas and dust within the Carina Nebula. Hubble observed the Carina Nebula from July 24-30, 2009, and released this image on Sept. 9, 2009.
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NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)8 of 26Planetary nebula NGC 6543, known as the Cat's Eye Nebula, was one of the first nebulae to be discovered. This image was taken in 2004.
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NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana), and STScI9 of 26This image of the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101 is actually composed of 51 individual exposures taken in March 1994, September 1994, June 1999, November 2002, and January 2003. The composite image was released on Feb. 28, 2006.
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Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and NASA/ESA10 of 26
This image, released on Nov. 2, 1995, shows newborn stars emerging from columns of interstellar gas and dust. The shot was taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
The camera operated from 1994-2010 and was made up of four light detectors with overlapping fields of view, one of which gave a higher magnification than the other three. When the four images are combined, the high magnification image needs to be reduced in size for the image to align properly. This produces an image with this unusual layout.
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NASA, ESA and Andy Fabian (University of Cambridge, UK)11 of 26Hubble captured this image of galaxy NGC 1275 in July and August 2006.
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NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)12 of 26The Hubble Space Telescope released this image of the star V838 Monocerotis on Feb. 3, 2005.
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NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)13 of 26
NASA released this shot of two spiral galaxies passing each other on Nov. 4, 1999.
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NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration14 of 26This shot of star-forming region NGC 3603 was released on Oct. 2, 2007. The bright stars in the center of the image are hot blue stars that have carved out a huge cavity in the gas surrounding them.
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NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)15 of 26
This view of the Carina Nebula is made from 48 individual shots. The composite image was released on April 24, 2007.
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NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)16 of 26Hubble captured this image of interacting galaxies called Arp 273 on Dec. 17, 2010. The larger of the two galaxies has a rose-like shape, caused by the gravitational tidal pull of the galaxy below it, UGC 1813.
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NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)17 of 26In February 2010, Hubble captured this image of the top a 3-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust, called Mystic Mountain, in the Carina Nebula.
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NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)18 of 26Hubble captured this image of planetary nebula NGC 2346 on Oct. 7, 1999. NGC 2346 is unusual because its central star is actually a pair of stars. The two stars orbit one another every 16 days.
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NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and IPHAS19 of 26
This image, released on Aug. 30, 2013, shows a protostar in a very early evolutionary stage known as IRAS 20324+4057. It is still in the process of collecting material from gas surrounding it.
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NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage team (STScI/AURA)20 of 26Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Herbig-Haro 110, a geyser of hot gas flowing from a newborn star, on July 3, 2012. Unlike most Herbig-Haro objects which usually come in pairs, HH 110 appears alone. Astronomers think it may be a continuation of another object called HH 270.
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ESA/Hubble & NASA21 of 26This detailed view of the Cartwheel Galaxy was released on Dec. 27, 2012. The shape was created when a smaller galaxy passed through a large disc galaxy. The event produced shock waves that swept up gas and dust and sparked regions of intense star formation (appearing blue).
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Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, and NASA/ESA22 of 26
This Hubble image was released on Jan. 16, 1996. It shows MyCn18, a young planetary nebula.
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NASA & ESA23 of 26This image released by the Hubble Space Telescope on Dec. 15, 2011, shows star forming region Sh 2-106. At the center of the image is newly formed star S106 IR.
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NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)24 of 26
Nebula NGC 604 contains more than 200 blue stars and is one of the largest known nebulae in a galaxy near the Milky Way. This image was released on Dec. 4, 2003.
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NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)25 of 26The Crab Nebula is an expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. This composite image was made from 24 individual frames taken in October 1999, January 2000 and December 2000.
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NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)26 of 26Next: Mind-Blowing New Photos from SpaceGlobular cluster Omega Centauri contains 10 million stars. About 2 million stars make up the core of the globular cluster, seen in this image released April 8, 2008.