The Hubble Space Telescope turned twenty years old this weekend. In those two decades it’s produced a huge amount of scientific output, with over 8,000 peer-reviewed papers based on Hubble data. Perhaps almost as importantly, it’s brought a great many beautiful pictures to an extremely broad audience; it’s contribution to astronomers’ outreach and education efforts through these pictures and the Hubble Office for Public Outreach is incalculable.
This is a stunning picture released by NASA and ESA to celebrate the anniversary. It’s of a nebula - a cloud of gas and dust - called Carina, which is forming new stars at one of the highest rates in our galaxy. And that means that, just as I’ve said of other nebulae, it’s a pretty violent place. I’m posting this on the move, so I encourage you to go to the Hubble site for a full description.
A star-forming region in the Carina Nebula, 75,000 light-years away
