Out of this world: Hubble celebrates its 20th birthday with amazing pictures of a turbulent cosmic tower



This stunning image is not from some artist's science fiction fantasy but was taken by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope.

For 20 years it has been peering into deep space and this image was released today to celebrate its birthday.

Taken earlier this year the picture captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars.

This image was released by Nasa to celebrate the Hubble's 20th birthday. It shows a small portion of one of the largest star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. The picture is reminiscent of Hubble's classic image of the Eagle Nebula dubbed the 'Pillars of Creation'. Seen here is the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and the dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars

These two images of Carina Nebula show observations taken in visible and in infrared light by Hubble reveal dramatically different views. The one on the right reveals the stars behind the nebula's wall of hydrogen laced wtih dust

The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks.



This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light years away in the southern constellation Carina.



The image has been released by Nasa as the agency celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth.

First launched on April 24, 1990, Hubble has since sent back to Earth a series of extraordinary images which have become some of the most iconic in the history of photography.

The image of Carina Nebula resembles this 1995 image taken by Hubble which was dubbed the 'Pillars of Creation' and has become one of its most famous images. Located at the heart of the Eagle Nebula, the Pillars are gaseous nurseries for newborn stars. The largest of the three pillars in this image is about four light-years from base to tip

Hubble's images have proved sharper than ever before over 12 months since Nasa launched a repair mission last May.

Its new suite of instruments, installed during five space walks, are more sensitive and allow it to see everything from ultraviolet light all the way to near-infrared light.

'This marks a new beginning for Hubble,' Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said at the time.

'The telescope has been given an extreme makeover and is now significantly more powerful than ever.'

Nasa said the telescope should keep working until at least 2014, when it will be replaced by a more powerful observatory to be called the James Webb Space Telescope.



The Hubble Space Telescope drifts 353 miles above at the boundary of Earth and space. Here it can avoid the atmosphere and clearly see objects in space











