Week 17, 2025: Hubble Celebrates 35 Years in Orbit This Month!
The month of October 2024 is an exciting time to be a comet hunter/photographer as there's not only one, but two potentially bright naked eye comets appearing in the night sky!
NASA and ESA's Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 35th anniversary in orbit on 24 April 2025, continuing its operations and changing our understanding of the universe as a whole. Launched in 1990 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, it then went on to observe countless celestial objects and beam back thousands of images which we could study and admire here back on Earth. Its longevity is made possible by five Shuttle servicing missions between 1993 and 2009, with a sixth being actively proposed by now-current NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, since 2022. It is expected to continue its mission to the cosmos until 2028 or 2040, when atmospheric drag becomes great enough to cause the telescope to reenter the Earth's atmosphere uncontrollably.
An improved 3D model of the Hubble Space Telescope can be downloaded as an add-on for Celestia here
Source: NASA