Orbiting at 380 miles above the Earth's surface, the Hubble telescope has sent us hundreds of thousands of stunning images from across the universe - it's easy to forget that when it was first launched it was widely derided as a $2bn "technoturkey" with "all the prowess of a Mr Magoo" due to its primary mirror being out of shape – by just 1/50th of the width of a human hair - causing the images to be nowhere near as sharp as had been expected. After a quick fix [sic] it's gone on to be arguably the single best achievement of space exploration.
In 2013 Hubble is due to be replace by the new and much more powerful Webb Space Telescope.
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