In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of the legendary NASA/ESA Hubble Space...
In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of the legendary NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on 24 April, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula located 3400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus.
The hypothetical companion star isn't seen in the Hubble image, and so it could have been later swallowed by the central star.
Since its launch in 1990 Hubble has made 1.6 million observations of over 53 000 astronomical objects.
A European mirror of the public data is hosted at ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre, in the European Hubble Space Telescope Science Archive.
Since 1990, 44 000 science papers have been published from Hubble observations.
Throughout its past year of science operations, new discoveries made using Hubble include finding water in the atmosphere of the smallest exoplanet to date, spotting a bizarre cosmic explosion far from any host galaxy, following spokes on the rings of Saturn and finding the unexpected home of the most distant and powerful fast radio burst yet seen.
Hubble will continue research in those domains, as well as capitalising on its unique ultraviolet-light capability to examine such things as Solar System phenomena, supernova outbursts, the composition of exoplanet atmospheres, and dynamic emission from galaxies.
Hubble investigations continue to benefit from its long baseline of observations of Solar System objects, variable stellar phenomena and other exotic astrophysics of the cosmos.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the Universe.
More informationThe Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Release on esahubble.org.