Each year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
dedicates a small portion of its precious observing time
to taking a special anniversary image,
focussed on capturing
particularly beautiful and meaningful objects.
These images continue to challenge scientists
with exciting new surprises and to enthrall the public
with ever more evocative observations.
To celebrate Hubble's 30th anniversary,
let's look back at the beauty and science behind each of the anniversary images,
unveiled as of 2005.
In this video, we will also unveil the very special
2020 Hubble Space Telescope 30th anniversary image.
For its 15th anniversary,
NASA and ESA released new views
of two of the most well-known images Hubble has ever taken:
a new Eagle Nebula image revealed a tall, dense tower of gas
being sculpted by ultraviolet light from a group of massive hot stars,
and a new Whirlpool Galaxy image
showcased the spiral galaxy's classic features,
from its curving arms where newborn stars reside,
to its yellowish central core that is home to older stars.
For its 'sweet 16',
Hubble celebrated with a beautiful mosaic image
of the magnificent starburst galaxy,
Messier 82.
It was the sharpest, wide-angle view ever obtained of M82,
a galaxy remarkable for its webs of shredded clouds
and flame-like plumes of glowing hydrogen
blasting out from its central regions.
In 2007, Hubble featured one of
the largest panoramic images it has ever taken:
a 50 light-year wide view of the tumultuous central region
of the Carina Nebula.
The colourful landscape is sculpted
by the action of outflowing winds and scorching, ultraviolet radiation
from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno.
These stars are shredding the surrounding material
that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.
The telescope's 18th birthday was marked by the release of
the largest collection of Hubble images
ever released to the public simultaneously.
Fifty-nine new images of colliding galaxies
revealed a variety of intricate structures.
Some featured dramatic collisions that trigger bursts of star formation,
and others highlighted stealthy mergers that result in new galaxies.
In 2009, Hubble photographed a peculiar system of galaxies
known as 'Arp 194'.
This interacting group contains several galaxies
along with a cosmic fountain of stars, gas and dust
that stretches over 100,000 light-years.
This system was likely disrupted by a previous collision,
or close encounter, as the shapes of all the galaxies involved
have been distorted by their gravitational interactions with each other.
To commemorate two decades in orbit, Hubble highlighted a small portion of
one of the largest observable regions of star birth in the galaxy -
the Carina Nebula.
The image captured the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust
three light-years tall, which is being eaten away
by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars.
A 'galactic rose' celebrated 21 years of Hubble,
an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies
called 'Arp 273'.
The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as 'UGC 1810',
has a disk that is tightly distorted into a rose-like shape
by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it,
known as 'UGC 1813'.
In 2012,
Hubble observed the raucous stellar breeding ground, 30 Doradus,
which is also the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighbourhood
and home to the most massive stars ever seen.
The nebula resides 170,000 light-years away
in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
This image is a staggering 650 light-years across.
To celebrate its 23rd year in orbit,
Hubble captured a new view of its anniversary image from 2001
and one of the most distinctive objects in our skies -
the Horsehead Nebula.
This image showed the nebula in a whole new light,
capturing plumes of gas in the infrared
and revealing a beautiful, delicate structure
that is normally obscured by dust.
Twenty-four years was marked by a beautiful image of part of NGC 2174,
also known as the 'Monkey Head Nebula',
this colourful region is filled with young stars
embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust,
located about 6,400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion.
Marking a quarter century of operation,
Hubble unveiled a glittering tapestry of young stars,
flaring into life in a special image that aptly resembled an exploding shell
in a fireworks display.
The sparkling centerpiece of this vibrant anniversary fireworks
is a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars.
In 2016, Hubble captured in stunning clarity
what looks like a gigantic, cosmic soap bubble.
The object known as the 'Bubble Nebula' is in fact a cloud of gas and dust,
illuminated by the brilliant star within it.
The vivid portrait of this dramatic scene
allowed us to fully appreciate the almost perfectly symmetrical shell,
which gives the nebula its name.
Next, Hubble featured a pair of spiral galaxies,
known as 'NGC 4302',
seen edge-on,
and 'NGC 4298'.
Both located 55 million light-years away,
the telescope brilliantly captured their warm, stellar glow,
and brown, mottled patterns of dust.
This colourful cloud of glowing, interstellar gas
is just a tiny part of the Lagoon Nebula,
a vast, stellar nursery.
And, this 2018 Hubble image is one of the public's favourites.
Observed using the telescope's optical and infrared instruments,
this nebula is a region full of intense activity,
with fierce winds from hot stars, swirling chimneys of gas,
and energetic star formation,
all embedded within a hazy labyrinth of gas and dust.
Last year, in 2019,
Hubble captured a colourful view of the Southern Crab Nebula
twenty years after its first observation of the object.
This peculiar nebula,
which exhibits nested, hourglass-shaped structures,
was created by the interaction between a red giant and a white dwarf.
And now we have come to the Hubble Space Telescope's
highly-anticipated 30th anniversary image.
The image is one of the most photogenic examples
of the many turbulent, stellar nurseries Hubble has observed
during its 30-year lifetime.
These regions are dominated by the glow of stars,
at least ten times as massive as our Sun.
These stars have short lives of only a few million years,
compared to the ten billion year lifetime of our Sun.
In this Hubble portrait,
the giant nebula NGC 2014
and its neighbour, NGC 2020,
are part of a vast, star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud,
a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way
located roughly 160,000 light-years away.
We look forward to more milestones
and new, beautiful images from Hubble in the years to come.