After it was launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope, a $1.5 billion orbiting observatory, was found to have a glitch in its giant lens - rendering Earth's first orbital observatory short-sighted.
Gallery: The most amazing photographs in the universe
After a Shuttle repair mission, the telescope has returned some of the most stunning images ever captured by science.
Hubble, which is about the size of a bus, has been sending pictures and data back to scientists since it began operating 370 miles up.
It transmits about 120 gigabytes of information every week. That's equal to about 3,600 feet of books on a shelf.
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