--- title: This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters description: On the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope, NASA has revealed a magnificent photo canonical: https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-23T16:04:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:37:10.851Z article:section: Science og:title: This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters og:description: It's the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope og:url: https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02a12413d73cc2bc/6987ec8306f2c14103337e10/nasa-hubble-25.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2048 og:image:height: 1152 og:image:alt: NASA Hubble Space Westerlund 2 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters twitter:description: It's the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02a12413d73cc2bc/6987ec8306f2c14103337e10/nasa-hubble-25.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=2ef8144c-cce5-45d3-b9eb-cd1d0978b2d3&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Apr 23, 2015 4:04 PM UTC  This Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit. This Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit. NASA/ESA/Hubble/AFP/Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Apr 23, 2015 4:04 PM UTC The Hubble Space Telescope [turns 25 on Friday](http://time.com/3772495/see-hubble-best-photos-25th-anniversary/), and in honor of its quarter-century anniversary, NASA unveiled a celebratory photo. The Hubble photo captures the full spectrum of light emitted by new stars, showcasing more colors than the human eye can see on its own. The telescope reveals in magnificent detail the spawning of newborn stars and the gas and dust around them. This particular image is of Gum 29, according to NASA, a region of the universe where many new stars are born 20,000 light years away from Earth. The intensely lit cluster is Westerlund 2, between 6 and 13 light years across and made up of 3,000 stars. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/"},"headline":"This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters","datePublished":"2015-04-23T16:04:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:37:10.851Z","description":"It's the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope","url":"https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/","keywords":["astronomy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02a12413d73cc2bc/6987ec8306f2c14103337e10/nasa-hubble-25.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02a12413d73cc2bc/6987ec8306f2c14103337e10/nasa-hubble-25.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"NASA Hubble Space Westerlund 2","caption":"NASA Hubble Space Westerlund 2","creditText":"NASA/ESA/Hubble/AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/astronomy/","name":"astronomy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3833015/hubble-telescope-photo/","name":"This Beautiful Photo Shows Why the Hubble Telescope Matters"}}]}] ```