What is ESA/Hubble (esahubble.org)?

Updated

esahubble.org is the European Space Agency's official website for the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the place to go if you want Hubble news, images, videos, and educational or scientific resources from ESA's side of the mission. The site is aimed at a broad audience — the general public, educators, and researchers — and you can subscribe to newsletters to get updates.

Who runs it and what it covers

The site is operated by ESA and serves as the ESA page for Hubble, described as "the space-based observatory that has revolutionised modern astronomy." It functions as a public-facing hub for the mission rather than a commercial product page.

Content is organized into several main areas:

  • News — press releases and announcements, with archives going back year by year (press releases from 1999 through 2026, announcements similarly dated).
  • Images — a large gallery including a "Top 100" collection, a Picture of the Week, and a Picture of the Month, sorted by categories such as galaxies, nebulae, exoplanets, cosmology, quasars & black holes, the solar system, star clusters, and stars.
  • Videos — categories include 3D animations, fulldome, galaxies, HD videos, Hubblecast, Space Sparks, and more.
  • Initiatives — items like the Word Bank, calendars, art and science projects, and anniversary features (for example, 30th and 35th anniversary content).
  • Resources — educational material, exhibitions, a planetarium show package, and downloadable assets.
  • About — general fact sheets, instrument details (WFC3, ACS, COS, STIS, NICMOS, FGS, and older instruments), and operations information.

Who it is for

  • General public — anyone who wants Hubble images, videos, or plain-language news.
  • Educators — educational material, exhibitions, and downloadable resources for teaching.
  • Researchers and image processors — instrument fact sheets, example data sets, links to archives, and tools such as FITS Liberator with a step-by-step guide to making your own images.

Getting updates

The site offers two subscription options:

  • Subscribe to Hubble News — general Hubble news updates.
  • Subscribe to the ESA/Hubble/Webb Science Newsletter — science-focused updates covering Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Both are accessed through the site's subscribe pages. The site does not state pricing for these subscriptions in the available information, so no cost should be assumed either way.

Practical notes

  • Image and video usage is governed by the site's "Usage of Images and Videos" pages, which appear under both the Images and Videos sections — check these before republishing.
  • Large image collections are available as ZIP downloads, including a Top 100 large-size file (1.2GB) and a Top 100 original-size file (4.7GB).
  • Advanced search is available for both images and videos if you need to filter by category or format.

If your goal is official ESA information on Hubble — news, imagery, or educational and scientific material — this site is the appropriate source. If you need NASA's parallel Hubble coverage or the joint mission pages, those are separate destinations.