SPACE.com -- Summer Space Shots No. 1: Hubble


	Summer Space Shots No. 1: Hubble By SPACE.com Staff posted: 07:00 am ET 04 August 2003

Summer Space Shots
First in a 4-week series of photographic celebrations.

Pictures of space are unequaled in their ability to inspire raw wonder and feed scientific inquisitiveness, all while just plain looking good. No telescope has accomplished these combined feats better and over a longer period than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Unlike any other observatory, Hubble has become a household word, a name so familiar that its very mention conjures thoughts of beauty. Amid a heated debate over when and how to end Hubble's life, here are some of its best pictures:

	The New Era Hubble's new Advanced Camera for Surveys joins a revived infrared camera to promise a bright future for the telescope. Both are in place thanks to astronauts from the 2002 shuttle mission STS-109. Here, charged particles from a hot star blow a bow shock through space, much like how a boat carves water. Gallery >>>
	2000-2001 This familiar photo of the Eskimo Nebula is the scene of an exploded star that's ejected comet-like objects with tails as long as a light-year. You might have forgotten some of the other pictures from this era. Gallery >>>
	1998-1999 A star named WR124 is surrounded by hot clumps of gas being ejected into space at speeds greater than 100,000 mph (160,000 kph). And this is not Hubble's most memorable photo from this era. Gallery >>>
	1996-1997 A pair of funnels and twisted-rope structures in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula are each about a half-light-year long. The scene is 5,000 light-years from Earth, so in 1996 when this picture was taken, the light it captured had left the structures 5,000 years prior. Gallery >>>
	1994 and 1995 It's easy lose sight of Hubble's diverse talents. Here it captured the impact sites of fragments from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashing into Jupiter. Of course, stunning pictures of deeper space were made during this early period, too. Gallery >>>

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