Hubble’s 35-year journey is a blueprint to understand the cosmos

From breathtaking snapshots of distant galaxies to game-changing discoveries about the universe's expansion, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has dazzled humankind for 35 years.After launching on April 24, 1990, Hubble overcame early flaws to become one of NASA's greatest triumphs. Its vivid images and countless scientific breakthroughs have reshaped our understanding of the cosmos, inspiring new generations of telescopes and astronomers.

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To celebrate Hubble's majestic journey for more than three decades, NASA recently released a collection of striking images captured by the HST.The US astronomer Lyman Spitzer proposed the idea of the Large Space Telescope in the 1940s. NASA and the US Congress approved the project in 1969 but faced budget pressures. Then the European Space Agency chipped in with 15% of the LST’s cost in exchange for 15% of its observation time.

The HST, named for astronomer Edwin Hubble, was planned in 1979 and built by 20 companies, universities, and the European Space Agency. It was initially scheduled to be launched in 1986 but that was delayed until 1990 due to technical difficulties and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. This Hubble Space Telescope image captures two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The 30 Doradus nebula, also widely known as the Tarantula Nebula, is approximately 170,000 light-years from Earth. Itis part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galactic satellite of the Milky Way.