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Celebrate Hubble Space Telescope's 25th Birthday at Intrepid Museum

By Mathew Katz | July 29, 2014 4:55pm
 This composite image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520.
This composite image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520.
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NASA

HELL'S KITCHEN — The Hubble Space Telescope is turning 25 and the Intrepid Museum is throwing it a birthday party.

Hubble@25 will be the first major temporary exhibition at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum's new Space Shuttle Pavilion, which also houses the space shuttle Enterprise.

The exhibit, which opens to the public on Oct. 23 and runs indefinitely, will celebrate the telescope's quarter century of looking out into deep space.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and has orbited the earth ever since. Because it floats outside of the Earth's image-distorting atmosphere, it can take high-resolution images of the cosmos. 

The exhibition will show those images, along with a variety of Hubble-related artifacts — including tools used in space to repair the telescope. The display will even feature a basketball that belonged to Edwin Hubble, the telescope's namesake, that was taken into orbit on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009.

 This basketball — which was once launched into space — will be on display at the Intrepid Museum. It was once owned by Edwin Hubble, the astronomer, and was taken on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
This basketball — which was once launched into space — will be on display at the Intrepid Museum. It was once owned by Edwin Hubble, the astronomer, and was taken on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
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NASA

Visitors will also be able to see photographs by Michael Soluri from his upcoming book "Infinite Worlds: The People and Places of Space Exploration," which documents the push to save and repair the Hubble in 2009.

Along with the exhibit, the museum will host a series of public educational programs, including conversations with astronauts, engineers and scientists who have worked on the Hubble.