35 years of the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope got off to a rough start. When it launched in 1990, expectations were high, but a tiny mirror flaw caused the images it captured blurry. Dave Barry called it the "Hubble Giant Orbiting Space Paperweight."

Despite capturing images better than ground-based telescopes, Hubble remained a $2 billion punchline until 1993, when the Space Shuttle Endeavour performed a historic repair. During an unprecedented five spacewalks, astronauts also performed other maintenance and upgrades.

The repair mission was a resounding success, and Hubble began sending back breathtaking pictures of our galaxy and beyond. As Hubble approaches 35 years in service, NASA has released a video featuring a photomosaic of its images of the Andromeda Galaxy. The 2.5 billion pixel image is made up of over 600 individual photos taken over a period of ten years.

More information and downloadable versions of the mosaic in various resolutions, up to 42208 X 9870, can are available.

Following below are some of Hubble's most famous and iconic images, including famed pictures of the Eagle Nebula (often presented as the "Pillars of Creation") and the Ultra Deep Field of distant galaxies.

The Eagle Nebula, also known as "The Pillars of Creation"
Crab Nebula
Eta Carinae
The Cosmic Reef
A Deep Field image (there are others like it)
Jupiter as seen by Hubble
Horse head nebula
Monocerotis revisited

Previously: Newly released Pillars of Creation visualization is stunning