The Hubble Telescope was launched 23 years ago today on April 24, 1990, earning its place as NASA's longest-running space mission.
Since then, the school-bus sized telescope has been zooming around Earth at a speed of five miles per second and sending back images of the most distant stars and galaxies.
Although Hubble's successor, the James Webb Telescope is on track to launch in 2018, Hubble will continue to beam back pictures that provide valuable information about how our universe was formed and how old it is.
Knots of glowing gas light up the arms of spiral galaxy "Messier 74." The glowing means that the galaxy is a rich environment for star formation.
Source: HubbleSite
The "Spiral Planetary Nebula" is a symmetrical cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Musca, discovered by James Dunlop in July 1826.
Source: Wikipedia
The "Celestial Snow Angel" is a star formation region in the constellation Cygnus about 2,000 light years from Earth in an isolated area of the Milky Way.
Source: HubbleSite
See the rest of the story at Business Insider