Two years later, the Hubble Heritage Project is thriving. We have released nine new images and have others in the wings. We have produced our first new observation, a three-color mosaic of the Ring Nebula, and have just completed our first public vote in which more than 8,000 people selected the polar ring galaxy NGC 4650A as the object we will observe in April 1999. In its first seven weeks, the Heritage program web site logged 17 million hits. Posters and slides are being offered for sale to the public.
Glossies hang on bulletin boards and doors throughout our building.
And somewhere, perhaps, one of these images will hang in a classroom or be tacked on a bedroom wall, and inspire curiosity and a zest for exploration, a sense of the vastness of the universe and the wonders awaiting those with a will to learn. It is this inspiration that will be the best and most valuable heritage of Hubble. Keith S. Noll is the principal investigator for the Hubble Heritage Project.