Sixteen Candles for Hubble
Remember Sixteen Candles, the 1984 John Hughes film featuring Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall? Hilarity ensued, as they say, when Ringwald’s film family forgot her sixteenth birthday.
We’re thinking of the film as we realize we missed an important date yesterday– the sixteenth anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Telescope aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
To celebrate the birthday, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have released a "mosaic image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). It is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82, a galaxy remarkable for its webs of shredded clouds and flame-like plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out from its central regions."
The image can be seen here. Or click here to view a series of other images captured during Hubble’s long life, such as the one above. (This one is our particular favorite.)
