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Hubble telescope celebrates 24 years with cosmic wave

NASA has an annual tradition on the anniversary of the Hubble telescope to release pictures the telescope has taken from its perch in Earth's orbit.

By Aileen Graef
To celebrate its 24th year in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has released this beautiful new image of part of NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head Nebula. NGC 2174 lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Hubble previously viewed this part of the sky back in 2011 — the colourful region is filled with young stars embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust. This portion of the Monkey Head Nebula was imaged in the infrared using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. UPI
1 of 10 | To celebrate its 24th year in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has released this beautiful new image of part of NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head Nebula. NGC 2174 lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Hubble previously viewed this part of the sky back in 2011 — the colourful region is filled with young stars embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust. This portion of the Monkey Head Nebula was imaged in the infrared using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. UPI | License Photo

NASA celebrated the 24th anniversary of the Hubble Space telescope by releasing an image Monday of a cosmic wave taken by the universe's best camera.

The Hubble team believes the wave is reminiscent of The Great Wave, a 19th-century print by Katsushika Hokusai, which shows a giant crest bearing down on boats with a view of Mount Fuji in the background. The "wave" is actually hydrogen gas and dust found in the Monkey Head Nebula -- a star-forming region 6,400 light-years away, located in the constellation Orion.

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The Hubble telescope was launched into space on April 24, 1990, aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Since then it has circled Earth more than 110,000 times and traveled 2.8 billion miles.

[NBC]

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