Earlier this year, the Hubble Space Telescope, a powerful instrument circling Earth, reached a big milestone. It turned 30! To celebrate, the U.S. space agency NASA released this stunning image recently taken by Hubble. Each bright swirl in the photo is a nebula, a giant cloud of dust and gas.
New stars form inside nebulae. That happens when gravity pulls dust and gas together. These spinning balls of material become larger over time. Eventually, they heat up and burst into new stars.
Over the decades, photos from Hubble like the one above have taught scientists a lot about how stars form and die, says Joseph DePasquale at the Space Telescope Science Institute. They’ve also increased the public’s interest in the universe. “Hubble’s images are awe-inspiring,” DePasquale says.