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[female reporter] The world's most iconic telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope

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is celebrating 25 years in orbit. Here to show us some of Hubble's most amazing images

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and talk about some of the science it's delivered, is Dr. Jane Rigby

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from NASA's Goddard Space Center, thanks for joining us.

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[Dr. Rigby] Of course, happy to be here.

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[female reporter] So, Hubble Space Telescope is 25, can you show us some Hubble's amazing images?

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[Dr. Rigby] Absolutely, Hubble has taken so many gorgeous images over it's 25 lifetime.

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We have seen, these are images that are scientifically powerful and also gorgeous.

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We've seen our own solar system, we've seen places where stars, like our own

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Sun are forming. We've seen places where stars like our Sun are dying.

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We can see galaxies like our own milkyway near by and when we look into deep space

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we can see thousands of galaxies, young and old.

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[female reporter] What are some of the surprising things you've learned?

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[Dr. Rigby] Well Hubble has given us so many surprises, this a telescope that rewrote the

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science textbooks. A few of my favorites, I would have to say that when Hubble looks deep

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space, right, at parts of the night's sky that look black and empty and stares for weeks.

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You add all those images together, you get a picture of deep space. What you see is

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thousands of galaxies, galaxies everywhere you look. Hubble has taught us that the universe is

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full of galaxies. We can study galaxies that are young, that have just formed as well as galaxies

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that are old and that are done forming stars. We can connect those dots to understand how

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galaxies like our own milkyway formed and evolved.

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[female reporter] What excites you most about Hubble?

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[Dr. Rigby] You know I'm going to have to, so for me Hubble is a very personal thing, right Hubble

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use by thousands scientists all over the world. I'm one of them

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I have led five programs with five programs with Hubble. It's incredibly competitive, right.

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Ninety percent of the proposals are rejected, but when you are lucky enough to win

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then you get to use the telescope. So some of the favorite days in my life have been coming to

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work early in the morning. Hubble took data for me over night and you are alright is it down yet?

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you are waiting for the data to come down to Earth. Then you can open up and see apart of

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the universe where no one has seen before and you get to be the first to do that. Hubble does that

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every day and for us astronomers it's very, its like your birthday when you get to be the one to

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get new data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

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[female reporter] The story of Hubble is also a human story, astronauts service the telescope

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five times. Can you talk about some of the obstacles that Hubble has overcome?

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[Dr. Rigby] So the Hubble story is one of a lot of drama and ultimately of triumph.

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Hubble was launched in 1990 with a defective primary mirror. It was ground very precisely to the

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wrong shape. We realized that error and in 1993, astronauts went up with Space Shuttle

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and put corrective lenses into Hubble, that fixed the mirror. Ever since then Hubble has delivered

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beautiful gorgeous images. Astronauts have been back to service Hubble four more times.

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Installed new camera's every couple of years. So if you think about where, and thanks to that

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right, these astronauts were risking their lives to fix Hubble. But every time they did, they made

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Hubble much better. So they fixed problems like gyroscopes and computers that were failing.

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But they also put in new digital cameras every couple years. Even though Hubble is 25 years

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old, have cutting edge amazing instruments on board.

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[female reporter] Talk about how Hubble has touched people.

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[Dr. Rigby] Hubble not only takes great scientific data that has rewritten the science text book

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but it also touches people on a real profound level. When you look at Hubble images they are

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beautiful. They touch you deeply. I think that's one of the amazing things about Hubble.

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So everyone knows about Hubble. It is the most famous telescope since Galileo.

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So everyone knows about Hubble. It is the most famous telescope since Galileo first used

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a telescope to look up. So it's used by, Hubble images and Hubble content are used by students

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in all 50 states and their schools. Hubble is the most famous telescope in our lifetime

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and probably since Galileo first used one.

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[female reporter] In 2018 NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, tell us a little

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bit about this mission.

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[Dr. Rigby] So Hubble is fantastic. We are designing and building a new telescope

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to what Hubble can't do. So the James Webb Space Telescope which is being built right now

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here at the Goddard Space Flight Center. It's much bigger than Hubble, it has a 7 times larger

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mirror. It is designed, we've had built it to do exactly what Hubble can't do.

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The Webb Telescope will be operated very cold, so that it can see kinds of light that Hubble

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can't see. Our goal with the Webb telescope is to see the first generation of stars and planets

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and galaxies that formed after the big bang. Hubble just can't quite do that

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it's not a big enough mirror and it's not a cold enough telescope, but the Webb telescope will

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be able to.

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[female reporter] Where can we see more of Hubble's beautiful images?

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[Dr. Rigby] So if want to put more Hubble beauty into your day, you want to go to

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nasa.gov/hubble

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[female reporter] Dr. Jane Rigby, thanks for joining us.

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[Dr. Rigby] A pleasure.