The Hubble Space telescope has been one of the most monumental human achievements and will celebrate its silver jubilee (25th anniversary) this week. Over these years, Hubble (thanks to some helpful repairs and upgrades) has provided us with an astounding amount of data and never previously discovered knowledge about our universe. Here’s wishing Hubble the very best on this momentous anniversary and looking forward to many more years of wonderful new images and discoveries about our Universe.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured some astonishing views of the universe. This picture taken by its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 is no slouch either, capturing a couple of galaxies in one shot. The main feature is the spiral galaxy NGC 6872 located about 300 million light-years away in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock).

NGC 6872 is the second largest spiral galaxy discovered to date by humans. It spans over 500,000 light-years across, compared to the Milky way which is approximately 120,000 light years from end to end. This picture also captures the galaxy IC 4970 which can be seen causing a disruption in NGC 6872’s upper left spiral arm, as it transits through the larger spiral galaxy, helping it create new stars.

The potential benefits of carrying out astronomical observations from space were first suggested in 1923, by the German rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. NASA worked on several initiatives and conducted proof of concept studies in the 1960s and 1970s that formed the basis of the Hubble Space Telescope. By sitting high above Earth’s atmosphere, Hubble can avoid all the background light and distortions that exist for telescopes on even the most remote areas of Earth. As a result, Hubble has provided astronomers and scientists with some amazing high resolution images of our universe. This has given us invaluable insights into how the universe came about, with some deep views into space and time.

Some of Hubble Space Telescope’s many significant contributions to astronomy and other scientific fields include:

• Dark Energy: detection of distant supernova what that tells us about the age of the universe.
• The process by which planets are formed.
• Massive black holes that exist at the centre of almost all galaxies.
• Hubble detected organic molecules outside of our solar system.
• Protoplanetary disks of gas and dust exist around many young stars.
• The origin of gamma ray bursts.

Over the years, Hubble has seen five servicing missions that have corrected problems and made many enhancements to the space telescope. Its most recent upgrade and maintenance occurred in 2009 and Hubble is expected to continue providing its stunning pictures and insights into our universe until 2014-15 (and hopefully beyond). As of 2010, the total cost of Hubble telescope is estimated to have been $10 billion.

This NASA video provides a nice slideshow of ultraviolet and infrared images of auroras at Saturn’s north and south poles. The images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft which is exploring the Saturn system (Cassini is currently on the Solstice mission) and the Hubble Space Telescope. Saturn has long fascinated humans with many historic and religious references – a topic to be explored further in the future.