BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Hubble Space Telescope - 27th birthday Aptil 2017

The Veil Nebula is one of the most exquisitely beautiful nebulae that we know of. It's a supernova remnant about 2100 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The supernova was the explosion of a massive star about 8000 years ago, and the remnant is now a brightly-colored cloud of glowing debris about 110 light years across. The name of the nebula comes from its gossamer-like filamentary structures. This is a new image from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.

Here's a colorful painting inspired by Hubble imagery and painted by Antonio Scortica. Click to enlarge.

Here is a gorgeous planetary nebula – it's name PK 329-02.2 doesn't match its beauty. The cloud of gas winding around a dying star is glowing blue. My favorite color! The nebula is in the southern constellation Norma, which is one of the constellations invented by 18th century French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille. It isn't named after a lady, but is Latin for a right angle. It represents a set square. (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA)

Inspired by Hubble discoveries, Crystal Peterlin has created this colorful image of the Universe.

Have a look at NGC 4639, a magnificent spiral galaxy that is over 70 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. The spiral arms have bright blue jewel-like regions where new stars are forming. NGC 4639 is also an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which means that it has a massive black hole in its core which is actively consuming the surrounding gas. (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA)

Here is the beautiful galaxy Messier 94 in the constellation Canes Venatici. It's about 16 million light-years away. It has an unusual feature called a starburst ring. The ring around it is bright because there's a high rate of star formation, and bright young stars are lighting it up. (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA)

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken advantage of gravitational lensing to collect the largest sample yet of the earliest known galaxies in the Universe. Some of them formed just 600 million years after the Big Bang, so it allows astronomers to look back in time to a very young Universe.

Luciana Urtiga has created an exquisite artwork called "we're made of star stuff", inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope.

A painting of the Small Magellanic Cloud by Maja Opacic, inspired by the Hubble Telescope. It's oil on canvas 24" x 24".

The Small Magellanic Cloud is a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. In the southern hemisphere sky it can be seen with the unaided eye and it looks like a small cloud.

Emily Whitehead, inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope, has painted a charming watercolor Nebula .