observed a galaxy designated MACS 2129-1 approximately 10 billion light-years from Earth. MACS 2129-1 subverted expectations about galaxies in which new star formation had ceased, a significant result for understanding the formation of elliptical galaxies. In 2022 Hubble detected the light of the farthest individual star ever seen to date. The star, WHL0137-LS (nicknamed Earendel), existed within the first billion years after the big bang. It will be observed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to confirm Earendel is indeed a star. Impact on astronomy Many objective measures show the positive impact of Hubble data on astronomy. Over 15,000 papers based on Hubble data have been published in peer-reviewed journals, and countless more have appeared in conference proceedings. Looking at papers several years after their publication, about one-third of all astronomy papers have no citations, while only two percent of papers based on Hubble data have no citations. On average, a paper based on Hubble data receives about twice as many citations as papers based on non-Hubble data. Of the 200 papers published each year that receive the most citations, about 10% are based on Hubble data. Although the HST has clearly helped astronomical research, its financial cost has been large. A study on the relative astronomical benefits of different sizes of telescopes found that while papers based on HST data generate 15 times as many citations as a ground-based telescope such as the William Herschel Telescope, the HST costs about 100 times as much to build and maintain. Deciding between building ground- versus space-based telescopes is complex. Even before Hubble was launched, specialized ground-based techniques such as aperture masking interferometry had obtained higher-resolution optical and infrared images than Hubble would achieve, though restricted to targets about 108 times brighter than the faintest targets observed by Hubble. Since then, advances in adaptive optics have extended the high-resolution imaging capabilities of ground-based telescopes to the infrared imaging of faint objects. The usefulness of adaptive optics versus HST observations depends strongly on the particular details of the research questions being asked. In the visible bands, adaptive optics can correct only a relatively small field of view, whereas HST can conduct high-resolution optical imaging over a wider field. Moreover, Hubble can image more faint objects, since ground-based telescopes are affected by the background of scattered light created by the Earth's atmosphere. Impact on aerospace engineering In addition to its scientific results, Hubble has