So to celebrate Hubble's 35th
birthday, we're releasing four new images from Hubble.
There are different parts of the universe.
One of them is the Rosette Nebula.
Or a part of it where stars are still forming.
And you can see dark clouds and then lit up clouds behind those
where new stars are ionizing the gas and showing off this glow.
We also are releasing an image of a planetary nebula.
Now, this colorful nebula really has nothing to do with planets.
That's just what they called it
decades ago.
But it is really the remnants of a dead star system,
and the outflows from the remaining white dwarf star are creating
this glowing cloud that's expanding away from the central sources there.
We have an image from outside of our galaxy, of another galaxy.
This is a spiral galaxy.
It doesn't look quite like we think our Milky Way does,
because the spiral arms are kind of smudged together.
We call it a flocculant spiral.
But in the middle, you see this amazing bar like structure.
These are common in some types of spiral galaxies, and they are the
mechanism by which gas and dust from the outer parts of the galaxy
are funneled in toward the middle and can fuel the formation of new stars.
We think our Milky Way also has some kind of a bar in the center.
And then much closer to home in our own solar system.
We've taken new pictures of Mars. These really wonderful clear
shots of Mars show different features on the planet from different perspectives.
As Mars is rotating, we see the icy poles on the top.
We see clouds, and we can also see mountain ranges
and deep canyons and plane structures.
Mars is an interesting planet to study, both for what
it's doing now, but for what it was like in the past.
These images from the Hubble Space Telescope show us the variety
of scientific discovery that Hubble is capable of doing.
We're using Hubble in new, exciting ways because Hubble sees wavelengths
or colors of light that other observatories
don't see, and vice versa, so we use them in complement.
Scientists are using Hubble's ultraviolet light capabilities
to see this energetic light that comes from star forming regions,
and also explosive events out in the universe from energetic stars.
We're using Hubble to complement the infrared light
observations that the newer Webb Space Telescope can do.
Webb can see deep into the universe some of the earliest galaxies.
Hubble sees nearer galaxies
in all the detail, seeing its hot spots of star formation.
With this information, together, scientists are piecing together
how galaxies have grown and merged and changed over all of cosmic history.
It's a very exciting new dual tool.
Well, when
Hubble was first launched, we were still just trying to understand
some very basics, like how fast is the universe expanding
and what are some of the processes by which stars form.
Hubble has given us an avalanche of information.
We've now measured very precisely the expansion rate of the universe.
And in fact, now, thanks to Hubble working with telescopes on the ground,
we know that that expansion of the universe is accelerating
by something called dark energy.
We've understood that Hubble is picking up signs of dark matter in the universe.
This is mass we can't see, but we see its gravitational effects by distorted light.
Hubble's picked up lots of regions in the universe where dark matter is prevalent,
Scientists are using in particular the Hubble and the Webb space
telescopes in complement because they see different wavelengths of light.
Hubble concentrates on visible light and the energetic ultraviolet
light, and Webb concentrates on red light and infrared light.
And so when we have these observatories used in complement,
we see this whole spectrum of colors that enable us to learn a whole
lot more about whatever we're studying, whether it's the solar system
or other star systems or distant galaxies.
One of the new branches of science newer
is the study of exoplanets planets outside our solar system.
When Hubble was launched, we didn't even know if there were
exoplanetary systems outside of our own solar system.
And in subsequent years, many exoplanets have been discovered by other facilities.
Hubble is now honing in on understanding
the nature of the atmospheres of these exoplanets.
Hubble was the pioneer of a technique of actually understanding the composition
of exoplanet atmospheres, and now that same technique is being used by Webb.
Astronomers are using the Webb and Hubble telescopes together
to get a full spectrum of information about exoplanet atmospheres
from the infrared all the way into the ultraviolet,
and that helps us understand how exoplanet atmospheres
compare to the atmospheres of planets in our own solar system.
This is an example of how Hubble is being used for science
now that was never envisioned when Hubble was designed.
Hubble gave us many discoveries right off the bat that then gave us new questions.
So now scientists are using Hubble to address questions
that were not even imagined when Hubble was designed.
I have
many favorite images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
I love the colorful nebulae
because they show us that star formation is still going on.
But I think my favorite image from Hubble
is something called the Ultra Deep Field.
This was an image taken by simply pointing the telescope in a direction of the sky,
that didn't have a lot of nearby stars to drown out the image,
and just collecting faint light for days and days with Hubble.
The resulting image is famous now it's covered with little splotches of light.
Well, those little splotches are galaxies.
Galaxies outside of our own Milky Way.
And these galaxies can contain hundreds of billions of stars.
I like to imagine being able to go to each one of them and check it out.
We can't do that yet with our technology, but we can do it with our eyes
and just see how galaxies fill the universe, how rich they are.
And of course, scientists are now learning about the history of the universe
by looking at how the more distant galaxies
in this image compare to ones closer to us.
Because astronomy is like a time machine, it's taken time for the light
to get to us and for the more distant ones we're seeing farther back in time.
The Hubble Space
Telescope is in excellent technical condition.
For something that's 35 years old, it's really incredible.
And the reason that Hubble is in good shape is because, first of all,
we've had these series of astronaut servicing
missions where astronauts have returned to the telescope,
put in new and improved instrumentation and repaired components.
And now we have this excellent team of experts on the ground
who are constantly monitoring Hubble's technical health.
They can address any glitches remotely from the ground is pretty incredible.
And we're even learning to operate the observatory in different ways
so that as it ages, we can continue to get excellent scientific results.
The Hubble
team and astronomers everywhere are excited
and very gratified that we're reaching this 35th anniversary
milestone for the Hubble Space Telescope mission.
This mission is older than many people on planet Earth.
A lot of people today have grown up with the Hubble Space Telescope as being a
part of their lives, and that's something I think we can be very proud of,
that this eye on the sky has given people around the world
a new view of the universe, how vast it is, how beautiful it is,
and how active it is, and how we are all fellow citizens
of planet Earth just looking up in awe and wonder at what we're discovering
because of this wonderful miracle of technology.
One of the reasons the world loves the Hubble Space
Telescope is that we've made our images accessible
to people around the world as long as we could do it.
And, you know, with the internet coming on board after Hubble was launched,
it really created a new portal for sharing the observations
of this major space observatory with the world.
And now people are using these Hubble images
for education, for inspiration.
And just to be curious about what's in the universe.
And I love that fact about this mission, and I'm looking forward to many more
images and spectra from Hubble to inspire people
for years to come.
NASA has a wonderful website for information
about the Hubble Space Telescope.
It's nasa.gov/hubble,
and we're also very active on social media at NASA Hubble.
So there's lots of information, all the Hubble images,
a lot of information about Hubble's history,
and a lot of information about Hubble's future.
So I encourage everyone to look.