It’s probably fortunate that the Hubble Telescope wasn’t around when the Three Wise Men were doing their star-gazing or history might be much different. Those Magi astronomers might have found themselves distracted by other celestial phenomena equally as interesting as the Star of Bethlehem.
Following the traditional Advent Calendar format, which reveals a new Christmas scene each day, the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008 provides an online collection of “Big Pictures” from the telescope. Each day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 25 a new picture will be added.
The first offering is a series of pictures of a star ejecting a cloud of gas. Other pics so far including colliding galaxies and gas-enshrouded nebulas.
(Keep in mind, the subjects are real, farther away and *much* larger than they appear!)
