Since it launched into space on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been an invaluable instrument to astronomers in unraveling the mysteries of the universe.
As it orbits the Earth 340 miles up, the telescope has imaged distant galaxies, black holes, and planets — making over 1.2 million observations in its lifetime so far.
Scientists have published more than 12,800 studies using its data.
And (almost) every year, the Hubble team chooses a celestial object for the telescope to spend a considerable amount of its time imaging that year, and releases a special photo to celebrate its birthday.
We tracked down these special images in Hubble's archives from all 26 years. Enjoy!
This year's birthday image is of a 'Bubble Nebula' between 7,000 and 11,000 light-years away. It formed because the solar wind of a nearby star crashes into a massive molecular cloud full of dust and gas, causing it to glow.
Westerlund 2, a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars that is 20,000 light-years away, was the 25th anniversary image.
Birthday photo #24: This colorful plume of gas and bright stars known as the Monkey Head Nebula in the Orion constellation, which is 6,400 light-years away.
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