To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's lift-off from Earth on April 24, here are some of the cosmic wonders it has captured over its lifetime.

Captions and photos courtesy of Hubble25th.org - visit for detailed descriptions of these images and more information on Hubble's 25th birthday celebrations.

 The Carina Nebula - an immense cloud of gas and dust where a maelstrom of star birth and death is taking place.

 Cat's Eye Nebula - a visual "fossil record" of the dynamics and late evolution of a dying star.

 'Butterfly Nebula' - what resemble dainty wings are actually roiling regions of gas heated to more than 20,000 degrees Celsius.

 Crab Nebula - an expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion.

 V838 Monocerotis - in January 2002, V838 Mon temporarily became 600,000 times brighter than our Sun, until it faded in April 2002.

 Supernova Remnant 0509-67.5 - this cosmic bubble might look delicate, but it is the gaseous remains of a star that blew up.

 Sombrero Galaxy - roughly 29 million light-years away, the Sombrero can be spotted with a modest telescope.

 Galaxy M83 - the pink clouds of hydrogen gas that dot the galaxy's spiral arms are nurseries where new stars are being born.

 Heart of the Tarantula Nebula - several million young stars reside in a nearby region of frenzied star birth known as 30 Doradus.

 Core of Omega Centauri - a collection of nearly 10 million stars, Omega Centauri is the largest of about 150 "globular clusters" in the Milky Way.

 Star Cluster NGC 602 - the cluster of blue stars formed when a large part of the gas cloud collapsed under gravity and became very dense.

 Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300 - bold and beautiful, NGC 1300 is a marvellous example of a barred spiral galaxy, thought to be the structure of the Milky Way.

 Stephan's Quintet - four distant galaxies that are connected to each other through gravity and one bluer "imposter" that is closer.

 Antennae Galaxies - this celestial firestorm is the blazing wreckage of a collision between two spiral galaxies.

 
Pillars in the Monkey Head Nebula - a region of star birth located 6,400 light-years away. This is detail from the "monkey's eye".

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