The telescope's stunning photos are showing the world about the wonders of space. Many of the world's foremost astronomers are using Hubble to probe the horizons of space and time. Designed to last at least 15 years, Hubble is providing intriguing new data about black holes, the birth of galaxies, planetary systems around other stars, and, of course, the expansion of the universe.
Astronomers can also get an idea of how the universe evolved. The farther away an object is, the earlier it formed after the Big Bang. That's because the light we see now had to travel the enormous distance between the object and the Earth, and light can only travel 300,000 kilometers per second. As a result, the HST's observations give us snapshots of the universe at different periods in its history. For example, in 1995 Hubble took a series of pictures now known as the Hubble Deep Field. The telescope looked at the same patch of sky for 10 days straight and took long exposures. Scientists discovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various distances and different stages of evolution.
