The Archives: Hubble's Mission of Discovery

Hubble Creates Mystery of Missing Galaxies
06 May 2004: The Hubble Space Telescope has peered more deeply and clearly into the cosmos than ever before, and there's something missing.

Pushing the Limit: Possible First Photo of Extrasolar Planet
10 May 2004: In a preliminary analysis of new data, astronomers say they may have imaged a planet outside our solar system for the first time by using a tricky new method and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Weird Object Beyond Pluto Gets Stranger
14 April 2004: When astronomers announced the discovery last month of Sedna, the most distant known object in the solar system, they were nearly certain it had an unseen satellite. New observations by the Hubble Space Telescope find no moon, however.

Universe Has At Least 30 Billion Years Left
20 February 2004: Recent Hubble Space Telescope images of distant exploding stars add further confirmation to the permanence of a mysterious, repulsive force called dark energy that appears to dominate the universe.

How Hubble Photos are Made
25 June 2002: From Hubble Space Telescope pictures to the vocabulary used to describe the stars, astronomers and the media are coloring our universe, and they've been doing it for decades.

Hubble Telescope: Surprise Tool in Search for Life
13 May 2002: Hubble has made unexpected contributions in characterizing other worlds and developing solar systems, places where researchers are eager to look for signs of life.

First Photos from Hubble's New Camera
30 April 2002: The images range from depicting sheer cosmic beauty, in classic Hubble style, to the surprise finding of thousands of distant and previously invisible galaxies.

New Look at Fate of the Pillars of Creation
19 February 2002: Where the majestic structures of starlit gas and dust now soar into space, marking the architecture of a stellar womb, nothing but a few stars and black emptiness will reign in less than a million years.

First Detection Made of an Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere
27 November 2001: Astronomers announced today the first detection of an atmosphere around a planet orbiting another star, a critical first step in understanding the skies above planets outside our solar system.

Behind the Beauty: Forces that Shape Hubble Images
01 February 2001: Adam Frank could not contain his enthusiasm when we gave him an advance look at a Hubble Space Telescope image of a nebula called Mz3. "Whoa! Man. Look at that. Wow! That's amazing." Does Adam Frank enjoy what he does? "Oh, yeah."