Hubble orbits our planet from 340 miles above the surface. READ MORE: How the James Webb Space Telescope captures stunning images of space The telescope is designed to take in visible and ultraviolet light, plus a short stretch of the infrared spectrum. Hubble has made about 1.5 million observations in the more than three decades that it’s been trained on the cosmos, according to NASA. Many of them millions of light-years away from Earth, the images help researchers better understand star formation and evolution, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena. NASA released six new, shimmering images of galaxies spotted by the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope last week.