Hubble's Last Stand

The largest and most versatile space telescope has taken what may be the most important picture ever. Thanks to seven brave astronauts, it's not done yet

For NASA's last mission to service Hubble, the space shuttle Atlantis was connected to the 19-year-old space telescope for almost a week.

After five spacewalks, the two spacecraft separated and the crew took this photograph of the telescope, which some scientists say captured the "most important image ever taken" -- the Hubble Deep Field.

In addition to that mind-boggling snapshot, Hubble has helped make some rather extraordinary discoveries, such as figuring out the most precise age for the universe yet. (It's around 13.7 billion years.)

In 2013, NASA is planning to launch Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, the mirror of which will be six times larger than that of its predecessor.

Until then, the aging Hubble still has some very important work to do, like using its new camera to go back even further in time, closer to the Big Bang than we've ever seen: about 500 million years after the beginning of time. That is, at least time as we know it.

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• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

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• Captured on Film: The Personification of Dread (March 13, 2008)
• Kepler and the Gate to the Black Forest (February 15, 2009)
• Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed (December 7, 2008)
• The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama (November 17, 2008)
• One Search for Extraterrestrial Life May End (July 10, 2008)
• Martian Soil Appears to Support Life, Scientists "Flabbergasted" (June 28, 2008)
  
• DNA Building Blocks Found in Meteorite Formed in Deep Space (June 24, 2008)
• Death of Star Captured for First Time (June 1, 2008)
• Astronomers Locate Youngest Planet (April 7, 2008)
  
• By-product of Life Found on Distant Planet (March 20, 2008)

image: NASA