Space, as in outer space, is a great unifier in a way. It surrounds us all, and from the dawn of humanity we all looked out into it full of wonder. We made meanings of the stars. Put stories and ancestries into the sky for safe keeping. Eventually used them to navigate our own weird orb here at home. Now we make them the focus of some of the coolest games and movies around like Dune, and all these wild Dune games.
We cared so much about space, and if one thing could be any truer in this universe, it’s that it doesn’t give a flying toss about us. That being said, as a species we can get back to making space all about us again.
Rediscovered by The Scotsman, NASA has given you the ability to see what cool space thing the Hubble space telescope was looking at on your very own birthday. All you have to do is enter your birthday month and day and it will automatically bring up an image, complete with a cool explanation of what Hubble was seeing on your special day.
The Hubble has been floating around space just a few months longer than myself, having launched in April 1990. Back in 2020 NASA released a bunch of cool features to celebrate Hubble’s 30th, and one of them was this nifty little search tool. All I got for my 30th that year was Covid lockdown so I’m officially very jealous.
Thanks to Hubble’s advanced years in space, there’s enough interesting anomalies spied for each date of every month to get its own, though the year will sort to whatever’s most interesting. On July 16 in 2006 I was turning 16 but the Hubble telescope was out there looking at a cosmic collision between galaxies. It’s a very fun way to feel impossibly small.
If you want to see some of the best images Hubble took in its first 30 years around the universe, NASA has you covered there too. As a part of the celebrations the 30 best photos over the years were added to this excellent space album for your perusal. Just keep in mind these are the best of the best, so don’t take it too hard if your birthday image pales in comparison.