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Conclusion
Choosing just ten things for this article was, as usual, tough. I can think of lots more things to add: JWST won't replace Hubble, it succeeds it; Hubble isn't really a telescope, it's a whole observatory; it has flown the finest UV camera ever built, which was so sensitive that a massive and hot O-type star in the Andromeda Galaxy could have damaged it (and once I nearly blew it up); when there is a strong meteor shower, they point HST in the opposite direction.
There are tons of things about Hubble that I'm sure I don't know either; I worked on it for a decade, but in fact I haven't worked on it for nearly a decade since. It's a complicated and beautiful machine, and it changed the way we look at the Universe, maybe forever. It certainly changed the way scientists do astronomy... and I know that the best thing it did, the best thing it could do, was to let people see just how phenomenally gorgeous our Universe is.
And for that, I'm very grateful. And that's one thing I do know.
Image Credits:
Hubble and Earth: NASA
Deep Image and Andromeda: NASA, ESA, and T. M. Brown (STScI)
Moon: John Caldwell (York University, Ontario), Alex Storrs (STScI), and NASA
Streak Flat: Courtesy Mark Clampin, NASA
Sun: Glenn Schenider
Apollo and Hubble: NASA, mad PS skillz by the author
Venus: L. Esposito (University of Colorado, Boulder), and NASA
Mirror: NASA
Nebula: Phil Plait (hey, that's me!)
FOS: both by Phil Plait
M51: NASA/ESA
Hubble, Earth, and the Moon: NASA
