Experiencing Hubble: Understanding the Greatest Images of the Universe

The scientific stories behind 10 of the most fascinating images made by the Hubble Space Telescope; Hubble's design; how its operations are almost cut short by a flaw in its mirror, a problem corrected during a space shuttle servicing mission.

Shortly after its optics are repaired, Hubble has the opportunity to observe the solar system event of the century; the collision of a string of comets with Jupiter in 1994; examining Hubble's image of the aftermath of this crash.

Hubble's view of a tiny region of the Sagittarius Star Cloud has 12,000 stars; studying this image; learning how its unprecedented resolution is helping to chart the stellar history and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.

Hubble's photo of the glowing pillars of gas and dust at the core of the Eagle Nebula; resembling a fantasy landscape, this view shows young stars emerging from their cocoons of gas and dust in an interstellar molecular cloud.

Turning from star birth to star death; getting a preview of the sun's distant future by examining the Cat's Eye Nebulae; such planetary nebulae are the exposed debris of dying stars; they are among the most beautiful objects in the Hubble gallery.

At the end of their lives, stars bigger than the sun disintegrate in an explosion known as a supernova; Hubble's image of the Crab Nebula shows the expanding cloud of material from a supernova witnessed on Earth in the year 1054.