Happy Birthday Hubble!

I missed it, but yesterday was the Hubble Telescope's 17th birthday:

When Stuart from astronomyblog wrote to me and told me there was a stunning image coming from Hubble to celebrate it’s 17th anniversary, I had no idea. WOW!!!!! Thanks Stuart! Take a look at his page, lots more on the image.

You can click the image above and see a larger (100 k) version, but you should go to Hubblesite to explore the zoomable version, not to mention the press release of which I have included the initial paragraph below.

From the release:

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble’s cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)