Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a cosmic "landscape" shot of star-forming nebula NGC 3324. Click here for a larger image.

Ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds blow in from a cluster of massive stars outside this image to help shape the glowing region seen here. Cooler and denser gas rises above the nebula's "hills and valleys" like a dark tower. Such dark towers of gas stand light-years in height, where a light-year is the distance light will travel in a year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).

NGC 3324 sits in the northwest corner of the Carina Neubla (NGC 3372), which contains the Keyhole Nebula and the active star Eta Carinae. Such notable sights in the Carina Nebula complex continue to fascinate professional and amateur astronomers 7,200 light-years away.

Meanwhile, NASA looks to salvage Hubble after a serious hardware failure has prevented the observatory from beaming data back to Earth. The space agency has delayed a space shuttle mission that was already slated to upgrade the telescope until at least February, so that astronauts and engineers can add the additional repair to the list.

• Video - Fly Into NGC 3324
• Video - Hubble Service Mission 4 Countdown
• Hubble Images - When Galaxies Collide

— NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage and SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley)