Astronomers² are celebrating the release of remarkable³ new images from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

宇航员庆祝哈勃太空望远镜拍摄到的非凡的新图片。

Hubble is expected to keep working until at least 2014

They prove the mission carried out by astronauts in May to service the observatory⁴ was an outstanding success.

The latest pictures include trademark⁵ Hubble visions - from colliding galaxies⁶ to dying stars.

Nasa says the orbiting telescope, regarded as one of the most important scientific tools ever built, should keep working until at least 2014.

The Atlantis shuttle mission in May was the fifth and final Hubble makeover（美容美发，彻底改变）.

The US space agency and its international partners plan now to concentrate their efforts on preparing a bigger and more capable observatory known as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Wednesday's release of pictures was the usual tour de force that astronomers have come to expect following a Hubble servicing.

It included dazzling（眼花缭乱的，耀眼的） pictures of galaxies headed for a pile-up, a star throwing off its outer layers, dense⁷ clouds of gas and dust, and a new pin-sharp look at the planet Jupiter.

"Hubble is back in action," declared Dr Heidi Hammel, a senior research scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, from where Hubble's mission is overseen⁸.

"Together, Nasa and Hubble are opening new vistas⁹ on the Universe," she told a reporters.

The British astronomer¹ Dr Paul Murdin, from the University of Cambridge, said the new images were breathtaking（惊险的）.

"My first reaction is 'my god, it all worked, it's fantastic'," he told BBC News.

"Refurbishment missions are always a little bit iffy（富于偶然性的） because things can go wrong; astronauts can muck（弄糟） it up, maybe we didn't think about this or that when we redesigned the equipment, reinstalled（重新安装） it and refurbished it.

"But these images definitely show that Hubble is in good shape for what will be - unfortunately - its last few years.

"It's going to go out with a real bang."

The Atlantis astronauts conducted five spacewalks, to install new instruments and thermal¹⁰ blankets, to repair two existing instruments, and replace the telescope's gyroscopes（陀螺仪，回转仪） and batteries.

Hubble is now more sensitive to light than ever before which should significantly improve its observing efficiency.

A key addition was the new Wide Field Camera 3. This is the instrument that many astronomers suspect will deliver the really big discoveries in the remaining operational years.

It will enable astronomers to carry out new studies of dark energy and dark matter, the "mysterious stuff" that makes up most of the Universe.

WFC3 will also allow Hubble to look deeper into space than ever before, to search for the very first stars to shine in the Universe more than 13 billion years ago.

One of the simpler tasks undertaken during the repair mission was to fit a docking ring that will serve as a point of contact with the defunct¹¹（死的，无效） Hubble sometime after 2020.

A robotic mission will be sent to push the telescope back towards Earth and a fiery¹²（炽热的，暴躁的） destruction in the atmosphere.

"Most of us humans will never travel to some of the exotic（异国的，外来的） places physically¹³ that we see in these images," reflected Nasa's chief scientist, Ed Weiler

"What Hubble has done: it's enabled our hearts, our minds, our spirits to travel throughout the Solar System, even billions of light-years to the very beginning of time almost. And I think its ability to inspire at least some of our school kids to consider careers in engineering, science and math - that will be its most important legacy¹⁴, not just keeping us astronomers happy."