Putting a Price on Wonder

This photograph released in 2003, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1999, captures a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. The uncertain fate of the Hubble Space Telescope, whose images have helped unravel some of the universe's deepest mysteries, has sparked debate in the US Congress and the scientific community due to the growing costs of keeping it among the stars.(AFP/NASA/HO/file)