Celebrating The Hubble Space Telescope's 35th Anniversary (1990-2025) | ESA

Celebrating The Hubble Space Telescope's 35th Anniversary (1990-2025) | ESA

This Space Sparks episode celebrates the 35th anniversary of the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope by showcasing four beautiful new images.

Mars: These are a combination of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars taken from December 28th to 30th, 2024. At the midpoint of the observations, Mars was approximately 98 million kilometres from Earth. Thin water-ice clouds that are apparent in ultraviolet light give the Red Planet a frosty appearance. The icy northern polar cap was experiencing the start of Martian spring.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2899: This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a nearly 22,000 degree Celsius white dwarf at the center. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and sculpting the nebula, which is pinched in the middle by a fragmented ring or torus—looking like a half-eaten donut. It has a forest of gaseous “pillars” that point back to the source of radiation and stellar winds. The colors are from glowing hydrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies approximately 4,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela.

Rosette Nebula: This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a small portion of the Rosette Nebula, a huge star-forming region spanning 100 light-years across and located 5,200 light-years away. Hubble zooms into a small portion of the nebula that is only 4 light-years across (the approximate distance between our Sun and the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system.) Dark clouds of hydrogen gas laced with dust are silhouetted across the image. The clouds are being eroded and shaped by the seething radiation from the cluster of larger stars in the center of the nebula (NGC 2440).

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5335: This object is categorized as a flocculent spiral galaxy with patchy streamers of star formation across its disk. There is a striking lack of well-defined spiral arms that are commonly found among galaxies, including our Milky Way. A notable bar structure slices across the center of the galaxy. The bar channels gas inwards toward the galactic center, fueling star formation. Such bars are dynamic in galaxies and may come and go over two-billion-year intervals. They appear in about 30 percent of observed galaxies, including our Milky Way.

Credits: 
Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann  
Editing: Nico Bartmann  
Written by: Bethany Downer  
Footage and photos: NASA, ESA, STScI, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
Duration: 3 minutes, 16 seconds
Release Date: April 23, 2025

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