The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an extrasolar planet, for the first time using direct visible-light imaging. The strange world is far-flung from its parent star, is surrounded by a colossal belt of gas and dust, and may even have rings more impressive than Saturn's.

A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures what appears to be one very bright and bizarre galaxy, but is actually the result of a pair of spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, smashing together at incredible speeds. This object was a target of Hubble's and a handful of its "sibling" spacecraft as part of a massive comprehensive sky survey called GOALS.

Visible to the naked eye, only 1500 light-years from Earth, the great Orion Nebula has been known and revered since ancient times. A popular target of Hubble, researchers have now identified 42 new discs within it that could be the beginnings of new planetary systems like our own.

In January and March 2009, researchers using Hubble took advantage of a rare opportunity to record Saturn when its rings are edge-on, resulting in a unique movie featuring both of the giant planet's poles. Saturn is only in this position every 15 years or so and this favourable orientation has allowed a sustained study of the two beautiful and dynamic aurorae, Saturn's own northern and southern lights.

Hubble has snapped a spectacular view of M66, the largest "player" of the Leo Triplet, and a galaxy with an unusual anatomy: it displays asymmetric spiral arms and an apparently displaced core. The peculiar anatomy is most likely caused by the gravitational pull of the other two members of the trio.

Gearing up for the 20th anniversary of the legendary space observatory, Dr. J takes a look at the story of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Born of an ambitious idea, it took decades for Hubble to become a reality. The project was complex and often faced huge setbacks but, ultimately, the powerful telescope took to the skies aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April 1990.

Look back through the decades with this – the first of two special Hubble 20th anniversary Hubblecasts. And stay tuned for the next anniversary Hubblecast.

Throughout its 20-year career, while moving at a staggering 28 000 kilometres per hour, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 930 000 observations and snapped over 570 000 images of 30 000 celestial objects. It has made more than 110 000 trips around our planet while collecting more than 45 terabytes of data, enough information to fill nearly 5800 DVD movies. Astronomers using Hubble data have published more than 8700 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. Join Dr J as he reviews the life of this prized observatory and presents it the Cosmic Lifetime Achievement Award for the scientific and artistic gifts it has given us.

This Hubblecast features a spectacular new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image - one of the largest ever released of a star-forming region. It highlights N11, part of a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This region of energetic star formation is one of the most active in the nearby Universe.

When Hubble was launched in 1990, every astronomer knew it had an opportunity to make profound breakthroughs in science. A few realised its potential as a tool for inspiring people with awe for the Universe. But could anyone have predicted how deeply Hubble would become embedded in popular culture?

Today's telescopes study the sky across the electromagnetic spectrum. Each part of the spectrum tells us different things about the Universe, giving us more pieces of the cosmic jigsaw puzzle. The most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space have joined forces over the last decade in a unique observing campaign, known as GOODS, which reaches across the spectrum and deep back into cosmic time.

In early 2009, a team of astronauts visited Hubble to repair the wear and tear of twenty years of operating in a hostile environment - and to install two new instruments, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and Wide Field Camera 3 - better known as WFC3.

Hubble's history of scientific breakthroughs has made us think afresh about our Universe. But behind the astronomical successes is a rollercoaster ride of scientific and technical challenges going back decades. The Hubblecast caught up with some of the key players in Hubble's history, including an astronaut, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the scientists who diagnosed Hubble's blurred vision in 1990. In this episode, narrated by veteran ESA scientist Bob Fosbury, they tell Hubble’s story through their personal experiences.

What makes a scientific discovery really important? It's partly down to how much scientists use the discovery in subsequent work -- but it’s also partly down to what inspires their imagination. In this episode, the Hubblecast talks to some leading astronomers about their favourite Hubble discovery. Meanwhile, our presenter, Dr J, struggles to make up his mind.

For centuries, scientists imagined objects so heavy and dense that their gravity might be strong enough to pull anything in - including light. They would be, quite literally, a black hole in space.

But it’s only in the past few decades that astronomers have conclusively proved their existence.

Today, Hubble lets scientists measure the effects of black holes, make images of their surroundings and glean fascinating insights into the evolution of our cosmos.

The Hubblecast's Joe Liske (Dr J) takes us on a tour of the Tarantula Nebula. Bright star forming gas clouds, super star clusters and supernova remnants are just some of the sights in this dramatic region of the night sky.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is working on three of the most ambitious projects in its history just now. These multicycle treasury programs are using Hubble's unique ability to observe across the spectrum from ultraviolet, through visible, to infrared light, to build up a library of data which will serve astronomers for many years. In this podcast episode, presenter Dr J (aka Joe Liske) looks at these projects, and how they will complement the capabilities of the next great thing in space-based astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Hubblecast's Dr J, aka Joe Liske, takes us on a tour of Centaurus A, a bright and dusty galaxy in the Southern sky. Hubble’s observations are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy.

This joint episode of the Hubblecast and ESOcast presents Abell 2744, an unusual cluster of galaxies nicknamed "Pandora's Cluster" by the astronomers who have studied it. Looking at the galaxies, gas and dark matter in the cluster, scientists have reconstructed the series of huge collisions that created it, and have uncovered some strange phenomena never seen together before.

In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske, aka Dr J, takes us on a tour of the outer reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way.

In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) looks at newborn stars firing out jets of matter. These jets may cast new light on how the Sun formed 4.5 billion years ago.

An international team of scientists led by astronomer Patrick Hartigan of Rice University in Houston, USA, has collected enough high-resolution Hubble images over a 14-year period to stitch together time-lapse movies of these jets.

In episode 49 of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) asked viewers to send in their questions about astronomy and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In episode 50, Dr J picks his favourite few questions from the hundreds that were sent in.

In this episode of the Hubblecast, we take a tour of the compact star-forming region Sh 2-106. Its hourglass shape is caused by the final, violent phases of a star’s formation in the middle of the gaseous nebula. This episode explains some of the science behind Hubble’s observations and brings them to life with detailed 3D computer visualisations.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for looking deep into the past of the Universe. But it can also predict the future. This episode of the Hubblecast takes us on a journey five billion years from now, to see the ultimate fate of the Solar System.

Using stunning Hubble imagery of the death throes of Sun-like stars, narrator Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows us what will happen when the Sun runs out of nuclear fuel — and how its wreckage will form the building blocks of new generations of stars.

Over two decades in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge number of observations. Every week, we publish new ones on the Hubble website. But hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are some truly breathtaking images that have hardly ever been seen by anyone.

In this episode, Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, explains what all this data is, what it’s for, and how you can take a look at it yourself.

To celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope this month, episode 54 of the Hubblecast gives a slideshow of some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set to specially commissioned music.

In this episode of the Hubblecast, scientists Jay Anderson and Roeland van der Marel show how they have used Hubble observations to predict the future of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.

Projecting the motion of Andromeda’s stars over the next 8 billion years, the astronomers now know the path that galaxy is taking through space. And it’s heading straight for us! Computer simulations based on Hubble observations show how the two galaxies will crash together in around 4 billion years’ time.

In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr J (aka Dr Joe Liske) presents the latest discovery about HD 189733b, an exoplanet that has been repeatedly studied by Hubble.

Observations taken in 2011 using Hubble and the Swift satellite showed a flare from the planet’s parent star scorching the upper atmosphere and driving it off into space.

This is the first time that clear change has been observed in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The observations give a tantalising glimpse of changing weather on planets outside our Solar System.