I reworked a NASA graphic depicting the Hubble Space Telescope for a USA Today/National Geographic Channel tab on the 25th anniversary of the telescope’s deployment.

The updated version.

The original version has great artwork but the text is too jargon-heavy to the average reader. I cut it down and added sections explaining how the telescope works and how it was fixed by spacewalking astronauts on five missions.

A neutral background makes the text easier to read. I added the six flights (along with mission patches) that put the telescope in orbit and repaired it.

At the bottom, I put in a scale depicting celestial objects photographed by the Hubble and their location from Earth. It was impossible to keep every object on the same scale since the distances are too great.

I was fortunate to incorporate Frank Pompa’s existing graphic showing how starlight enters the telescope — it helped the reader quickly understand how that part of the telescope works. I kept the same color scheme when drawing the telescope’s internal mirrors and and showing how they were fixed.

The original version.