Hubble Space Telescope turns 30: Astronomer Fred Watson shares his top 10 photos

For 30 years and counting, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken us on a journey through the cosmos from auroras on Jupiter to some of the earliest galaxies in the universe. Instructions: Use left and right arrow keys to control image transition Before and after images SLIDE An infrared image of the Pillars of Creation taken by the Hubble Telescope / Visible light image of the Pillars of Creation These towering pillars some 6,500 light years away in the Eagle Nebula in the constellation of Orion have become one of Hubble's most iconic images. "Even though it's so far away, the extraordinary imaging capability of Hubble teases out detailed structure in the galaxy's brownish dust-lanes, shows compact clouds of luminous gas in its spiral arms, and clearly reveals individual stars." Instructions: Use left and right arrow keys to control image transition Before and after images SLIDE Close-up view of Supernova 1987a taken by three telescopes: Hubble optical, ALMA submillimetre, Chandra X-ray / Hubble widefield view of Supernova 1987a remnant Early in 1987, in another part of the Tarantula Nebula, an exploding star produced the first naked-eye supernova for almost 400 years "By the time Hubble was launched, the supernova had faded back into obscurity, but the new telescope allowed its remnant to be probed." "The light from the faintest of these galaxies has been travelling for 13.2 billion of the Universe's 13.7 billion year history: a statistic that testifies to the extraordinary imaging capability of Hubble."