No 2. Pillars of creation

Coming in at number 2 is actually an image of columns of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula; it is called so because of the fact that stars and everything else in the universe is created in these clouds of dust. Although these “pillars” are no longer there, they will appear intact to us on earth for another 1000 years or so. Snapped in 1996, the glowing eggs you see inside the towers are the newly forming stars. The Eagle Nebula is a stellar nursery for that matter, giving birth to hundreds of stars.

No 1. Hubble Ultra Deep Field

An image that contains over an estimated 10,000 galaxies, allowing humans to picture the universe 13 billion years old, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) is without doubt the best image the telescope has ever captured and deservingly holds the number 1 spot in our list.

It was composited by data collected from the telescope for over 3 months and it still the image covers roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The image is and will be used to study galaxies that formed about 400 to 800 million years after the Big Bang.

Here is video to go with this beautiful image:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgg2tpUVbXQ[/youtube]