Hubble’s advanced camera for surveys identified a number of ultra-distant galaxy clusters, allowing us to probe whether dark energy is a cosmological constant or not. These ultra-distant clusters display star-formation rates far greater than the clusters we observe today. Despite how wondrous this image is, it didn’t make the cut for the top 10 Hubble images of 2018. (NASA, ESA, J. BLAKESLEE, M. POSTMAN AND G. MILEY / STSCI)

These Are The Top 10 Hubble Images Of 2018

Despite being 28 years old and having a gyroscope failure, Hubble still delivered these 10 amazing snapshots in 2018.

Year after year since its 1990 launch, Hubble keeps revolutionizing our view of the Universe.

Astronaut Story Musgrave on an EVA to the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope suffered a setback earlier this year with the latest gyroscope failure, but scientists were able to get it back on track, where it’s now observing the Universe to incredibly high precision once again. (NASA / STS-61)

No other observatory continues to teach us so much.

The full UV-visible-IR composite of the XDF; the greatest image ever released of the distant Universe. In a region just 1/32,000,000th of the sky, we’ve found 5,500 identifiable galaxies, all owing to the Hubble Space Telescope. Hundreds of the most distant ones seen here are already unreachable, even at the speed of light, due to the relentless expansion of space. This image was perhaps the best one released in 2013, but Hubble has still more to reveal. (NASA, ESA, H. TEPLITZ AND M. RAFELSKI (IPAC/CALTECH), A. KOEKEMOER (STSCI), R. WINDHORST (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY), AND Z. LEVAY (STSCI))

28 years on, it’s still yielding uniquely spectacular scientific sights.

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 1277. The galaxy is unique in that it is considered a relic of what galaxies were like in the early universe. The galaxy is composed exclusively of aging stars that were born 10 billion years ago. But unlike other galaxies in the local universe, it has not undergone any further star formation. These ‘red and dead’ galaxies are found most often stripped of gas as they speed through dense galaxy clusters, like NGC 1277 here. It also contains a supermassive black hole thousands of times the mass of the one at the center of our Milky Way. There are still mysteries to be solved about this galaxy, as well as the Perseus Cluster it inhabits. (NASA, ESA, M. BEASLEY (INSTITUTO DE ASTROFÍSICA DE CANARIAS), AND P. KEHUSMAA)

10.) NGC 1277: this spiral galaxy hasn’t formed stars in 11 billion years, having lost its gas by speeding through its cluster.

A single monstrous star, Herschel 36, shines as bright as 200,000 Suns combined at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. While visible light (L) reveals the presence of gas and dust at different temperatures and composed of different elements, the infrared view at right showcases the incredible abundance of stars that are hidden behind the nebulosity in the visible part of the spectrum. These stars inside the nebula are not fully resolvable by Hubble at its accessible wavelengths, but the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will successfully see through all of the dust. (NASA, ESA, AND STSCI)