Hubble Completes 100,000th Orbit, Takes Yet Another Breathtaking Photo

Hubble, without a doubt the most spectacular digital camera in the solar system, has completed its 100,000th orbit. To celebrate, scientists pointed the telescope to NGC 2074, a spectacular star birthplace 170,000 light-years away, right next to the Tarantula nebula, where Ming of Mongo is probably building a weapon of mass destruction. Like always, the image–taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2–is breathtaking, especially the high resolution version:

I feel tiny.

For a project that has been dying for the last few years, this telescope keeps being one of the most successful NASA projects in history. Let’s hope the James Webb works as well. [NASA]