30 years ago: the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (shown here). Built to give us a view from “the ultimate mountaintop,” Hubble led to new discoveries about black holes and an accelerating expansion of the universe. Fun fact: after astronauts completed the famed 1993 in-orbit repair, mission control played the song “I Can See Clearly Now” for the traditional wake-up music the following morning. Hubble will be succeeded by the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in March 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, to observe the most distant objects and unexplored planets in the universe. For the Hubble’s 30th anniversary, you can download iconic images taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (aka “WFPC2”) via JPL. Great for backgrounds on those Zoom meetings. (Photo: NASA)