Jaw-dropping photo of Milky Way celebrates Hubble Telescope's 35th birthday in style
Newly-processed image of Small Magellanic Cloud star cluster shows that this old space telescope can still impress with its pictures

The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 35th birthday this month - and to celebrate, it has released a stunning new image taken of a section of the Milky Way.
Hubble has taken photos of NGC 346 before - a young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. But the new image includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this "vibrant star-forming factory" that lies some 200,000 light-years away.
"NGC 346 is home to more than 2500 newborn stars", we are told. "The cluster’s most massive stars, which are many times more massive than our Sun, blaze with an intense blue light in this image. The glowing pink nebula and snakelike dark clouds are sculpted by the luminous stars in the cluster"
"Hubble’s exquisite sensitivity and resolution were instrumental in uncovering the secrets of NGC 346’s star formation. Using two sets of observations taken 11 years apart, researchers traced the motions of NGC 346’s stars, revealing them to be spiraling in toward the centre of the cluster. This spiralling motion arises from a stream of gas from the outside of the cluster that fuels star formation in the centre of the turbulent cloud".
A joint venture between US and European space agencies NASA and ESA, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
• See other Hubble anniversary photos
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Chris George has worked on Digital Camera World since its launch in 2017. He has been writing about photography, mobile phones, video making and technology for over 30 years – and has edited numerous magazines including PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Digital Camera, Video Camera, and Professional Photography.
His first serious camera was the iconic Olympus OM10, with which he won the title of Young Photographer of the Year - long before the advent of autofocus and memory cards. Today he uses a Nikon D800, a Fujifilm X-T1, a Sony A7, and his iPhone 15 Pro Max.
He has written about technology for countless publications and websites including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, Dorling Kindersley, What Cellphone, T3 and Techradar.
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