The Most Fantastic Hubble Telescope Photographs

Published October 2, 2012
Updated November 6, 2019

The Hubble Space Telescope takes some of the most amazing photographs in the entire universe.

Hubble Telescope Pictures
Hubble Telescope Pictures Column
Yellow Stars Against Red
Hubble Telescope Photograph
The Most Fantastic Hubble Telescope Photographs
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In 2020, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will have been photographing the cosmos for 30 years. It has had a long and illustrious career, capturing some of the most breathtaking, beautiful images in the entire universe.

With abilities far, far beyond those of the human eye, the HST captures near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light while sitting outside the blurring effect of the Earth's atmosphere.

This unique combination of abilities lets the HST -- whose principal mirror is larger than a human being at eight feet -- peer into the past and examine stars as they live, breath, and die in fiery explosions.

Humanity's knowledge of the universe would be far less expansive compared to what it is now if not for the HST. For example, astrophysicists even used the HST to determine the exact rate of the universe's expansion.

The HST will eventually fall back down to Earth, however, sometime between 2030 to 2040. Don't fret, though. Its successor -- both spiritually and scientifically -- is set to launch into space in 2018.

Its name? The James Webb Space Telescope. Perhaps not as cool as Hubble, granted, but all is forgiven if it can take pictures of our universe as beautifully as the HST.

See some of the best Hubble telescope pictures in the gallery above.


If you enjoyed these Hubble telescope pictures, check out some astounding images of space as well as Hubble's most important image.

Alec
Alexander is a Brooklyn-based cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics. He specializes in American history, the Cold War, and true crime.