To celebrate Hubble’s 35th anniversary in orbit, scientists premiered four new images.
From shots of the solar system, to star forming regions, and a breathtaking galaxy, Hubble never ceases to amaze.
Here are a few of the achievements from Hubble’s 35th year in orbit.
Within our Solar System
Recent observations show that the Great Red Spot is wobbling and fluctuating in size, speed, and shape.
Scientists predict the storm will continue to shrink and eventually stabilize.
Using data from Hubble and MAVEN, astronomers measured how much water escaped Mars’ atmosphere over time.
These studies help us understand planets in our own solar system…
…as well as the evolution of Earth-size planets around other stars.
In 2024, Hubble celebrated 10 years of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy, or OPAL program.
OPAL collected annual observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to understand their atmospheric dynamics.
These planets also serve as proxies for understanding the weather and climate on worlds orbiting other stars.
Beyond our Solar System
Hubble caught a rare class of star known as a "blue lurker…
…hidden deep within the open star cluster M67, roughly 2,800 light-years away.
The blue lurker blends in with other stars but is spinning much faster than expected…
…due to its siphoning of material from a companion star that causes its rotation to speed up.
While normal Sun-like stars typically rotate once in about 30 days, the lurker takes only four days.
Hubble revisited a star system that erupted in a nova 40 years ago: HM Sagittae.
It found surprising clumps and jets of gas still expanding from the explosion.
Studying these remnants helps scientists understand how binary stars evolve, and how some may one day explode again.
Hubble revealed new details about the outburst of a young star named FU Orionis…
…showing that its accretion disk outshined the star, making the system 100 times more luminous than our Sun.
This rare event is a front-row seat to the dramatic growth spurts young stars can have as they gather material from surrounding disks.
Beyond our Galaxy
Buried deep within a pair of colliding galaxies, astronomers observed a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting closer together than any other confirmed duo of their kind.
They are approximately 300 light-years apart and were detected using Hubble and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The pair is fueled by infalling gas and dust, causing them to shine brightly.
The Andromeda Galaxy, our close galactic neighbor, holds over 1 trillion stars.
Recent Hubble surveys mapped the galaxy’s entire disk, an effort spanning a decade and over 1,000 orbits.
The resulting image has over 2.5 billion pixels that show everything from young stars to remnants of past galactic collisions.
Using Hubble, astronomers found more black holes in the early universe than previously reported…
…challenging current theories.
This suggests that these powerful objects formed faster and more often than previously thought.
The discovery helps refine our understanding of how the universe evolved in its earliest stages.
Hubble also released an abundance of beautiful images…
After 35 years, Hubble keeps expanding our knowledge of the cosmos.
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