Wide-field view of the region around NGC 2623 (ground-based image)
A wide-field image of the region around NGC 2623 constructed from Digitized Sky Survey 2 images. The field of view is approximately 3.0 degrees x 3.0 degrees.
NGC 1672 in Dorado (ground-based image)
A 2.7 x 2.9 degree wide field ground-based image of NGC 1672's region in the Southern constellation of Dorado. This image is a colour composite taken by the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2).
Ground-based MACHO-LMC-5 1994
Ths ground based observation image shows MACHO-LMC-5, a red dwarf star in our Milky Way galaxy. The star was observed because of a backgroundstar, STAR-0516-7029, in its close neighborhood. This giant blue star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way....
Ground-based MACHO-LMC-5 1993
Ths ground based observation image shows MACHO-LMC-5, a red dwarf star in our Milky Way galaxy. The star was observed because of a backgroundstar, STAR-0516-7029, in its close neighborhood. This giant blue star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way....
Star-Forming Region in Galaxy NGC 2366
A black and white (visual) image of the irregular galaxy NGC 2366 obtained at the Canada-France-Hawaii (CFHT) 3.6-meter telescope on Mauna Kea on February 7, 1996.
A Day in the Lives of Galaxies
Like a photographer clicking random snapshots of a crowd of people, NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a view of an eclectic mix of galaxies. In taking this picture, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys was not looking at any particular target. The camera was taking a picture of a...
Hubble Deep Field South--Multiple windows on the Universe
The deepest visible/ultraviolet light image of the universe ever taken, revealing galaxies down to 30th magnitude. Glaring fiercely across 12 billion light-years of space is the brilliant beacon of a distant quasar (z=2.2). Most of the galaxies in this view lie between us and the quasar. The...
HDF Southern Field (Hubble STIS View)
The deepest visible/ultraviolet light image of the universe ever taken, revealing galaxies down to 30th magnitude. Glaring fiercely across 12 billion light-years of space is the brilliant beacon of a distant quasar (z=2.2). Most of the galaxies in this view lie between us and the quasar. The...
HDF-S on Ground Based Image with Overlay
Location of the HDF South Sky Survey Image with overlay
A Familiar Sight
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows IC 4653, a galaxy just above 80 million light-years from Earth. That may sound like quite a distance, but its not that far on a cosmic scale. At these kinds of distances, the types and structures of the objects we see are similar to...
GOODS-South Hubble Deep UV Legacy Field
Following on from last weeks Picture of the Week, this week we showcase the second part of the Hubble Deep UV (HDUV) Legacy Field, the GOODS-South view. With the addition of new ultraviolet light imagery, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured the largest panoramic...
The Dog Star, Sirius A, and its tiny companion
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows Sirius A, the brightest star in our nighttime sky, along with its faint, tiny stellar companion, Sirius B. Astronomers overexposed the image of Sirius A [at centre] so that the dim Sirius B [tiny dot at lower left] could be seen. The cross-shaped...
New view of the Pillars of Creation visible
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited one of its most iconic and popular images: the Eagle Nebulas Pillars of Creation. This image shows the pillars as seen in visible light, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured...
The Bubble Nebula
The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8 000 light-years away. This stunning new image was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 26th year in space.
Extreme star cluster bursts into life in new Hubble image
The star-forming region NGC 3603 - seen here in the latest Hubble Space Telescope image - contains one of the most impressive massive young star clusters in the Milky Way. Bathed in gas and dust the cluster formed in a huge rush of star formation thought to have occurred around a million years...
Antennae Galaxies reloaded
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the best ever image of the Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning galaxies twice before, once using observations from its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in 1997, and again in 2006 from the Advanced Camera for...
Magnetic monster NGC 1275
This stunning image of NGC 1275 was taken using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in July and August 2006. It provides amazing detail and resolution of the fragile filamentary structures, which show up as a reddish lacy structure surrounding the central bright...
New infrared view of the Horsehead Nebula Hubbles 23rd anniversary image
This new Hubble image, captured and released to celebrate the telescopes 23rd year in orbit, shows part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33. This image...
Hubble's sharpest view of the Orion Nebula
This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More...
Hubble mosaic of the majestic Sombrero Galaxy
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of...
Hubble sees galaxies galore
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting...
New stars shed light on the past
This image depicts bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the centre of a fascinating star-forming region known as N90. The high energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars in N90 is eroding the outer portions of the nebula from the inside, as the diffuse outer...
Spirals and supernovae
This stunning image from Hubble shows the majestic galaxy NGC 1015, found nestled within the constellation of Cetus (The Whale) 118 million light-years from Earth. In this image, we see NGC 1015 face-on, with its beautifully symmetrical swirling arms and bright central bulge creating a scene...
Out of this whirl: The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and companion galaxy
The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. This sharpest-ever image, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the...
The Eagle has risen: stellar spire in the Eagle Nebula
Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometres high, about twice the distance from our...
Young stars sculpt gas with powerful outflows
This Hubble Space Telescope view shows one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space, located 210,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. At the centre of the region is a brilliant star cluster called NGC...
A poster-size image of the beautiful barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300
One of the largest Hubble Space Telescope images ever made of a complete galaxy is being unveiled today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego, Calif. The Hubble telescope captured a display of starlight, glowing gas, and silhouetted dark clouds of interstellar dust in this...
Light continues to echo three years after stellar outburst
The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for...
A 'wallpaper' of distant galaxies is a stunning backdrop for a runaway galaxy
Against a stunning backdrop of thousands of galaxies, this odd-looking galaxy with the long streamer of stars appears to be racing through space, like a runaway pinwheel firework. This picture of the galaxy UGC 10214 was taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which was installed aboard...
Hubble's newest camera takes a deep look at two merging galaxies
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the newest camera on NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, has captured a spectacular pair of galaxies engaged in a celestial dance of cat and mouse or, in this case, mouse and mouse. Located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, the...
Hubble's newest camera images ghostly star-forming pillar of gas and dust
Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this celestial object is actually just a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula (in NGC 2264) - so named because in ground-based images it has a conical shape - this monstrous pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming...
Hubble view of Messier 106
This image combines Hubble observations of Messier 106 with additional information captured by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany. Gendler combined Hubble data with his own observations to produce this stunning colour image. Messier 106 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, a...
Star birth in the extreme
Hubble's view of the Carina Nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding...
The Red Spider Nebula: surfing in Sagittarius - not for the faint-hearted!
Huge waves are sculpted in this two-lobed nebula some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbours one of the hottest stars known and its powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometres high. The waves are caused by supersonic...
Light and shadow in the Carina Nebula
Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the 'Keyhole Nebula, ' obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's...
Saturn in natural colours
The ring swirling around Saturn consists of chunks of ice and dust. Saturn itself is made of ammonia ice and methane gas. The little dark spot on Saturn is the shadow from Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Hubble snaps close-up of the Tarantula
Hubble has taken this stunning close-up shot of part of the Tarantula Nebula. This star-forming region of ionised hydrogen gas is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy which neighbours the Milky Way. It is home to many extreme conditions including supernova remnants and the heaviest...
Flocculent spiral NGC 2841
Star formation is one of the most important processes in shaping the Universe; it plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies and it is also in the earliest stages of star formation that planetary systems first appear. Yet there is still much that astronomers dont understand, such as how...
Hubble captures view of Mystic Mountain
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years...
Largest ever galaxy portrait - stunning HD image of Pinwheel Galaxy
This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.
Galactic wreckage in Stephan's Quintet
A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide colour range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. This portrait of Stephan's Quintet, also known as the Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the...
Barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217
This is the first image of a celestial object taken with the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The camera was restored to operation during the STS-125 Servicing Mission to upgrade the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 was photographed on 13 June...
Dramatically backlit dust lanes in NGC 7049
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of NGC 7049 in the constellation of Indus, in the southern sky. A family of globular clusters appears as glittering spots dusted around the galaxy halo. Astronomers study the globular clusters in NGC 7049 to learn more about its formation...
Holiday wishes from the Hubble Space Telescope
In the new Hubble image of the galaxy M74 we can also see a smattering of bright pink regions decorating the spiral arms. These are huge, relatively short-lived, clouds of hydrogen gas which glow due to the strong radiation from hot, young stars embedded within them; glowing pink regions of...
Stellar nursery in the arms of NGC 1672
The barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, showing up clusters of hot young blue stars along its spiral arms, and clouds of hydrogen gas glowing in red. Delicate curtains of dust partially obscure and redden the light of the stars behind them. NGC 1672's symmetric look is emphasised by the four...
ACS image of NGC 5866
This is a unique NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the disk galaxy NGC 5866 tilted nearly edge-on to our line-of-sight. Hubble's sharp vision reveals a crisp dust lane dividing the galaxy into two halves. The image highlights the galaxy's structure: a subtle, reddish bulge surrounding a...
Hubble image of ESO 381-12
The ghostly shells of galaxy ESO 381-12 are captured here in a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, set against a backdrop of distant galaxies. The strikingly uneven structure and the clusters of stars that orbit around the galaxy suggest that ESO 381-12 may have been part of a...
A grazing encounter between two spiral galaxies
In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night. The near-collision has been caught in images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.
The Spirograph Nebula
Glowing like a multi-faceted jewel, the planetary nebula IC 418 lies about 2000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lepus. In this picture, the Hubble telescope reveals some remarkable textures weaving through the nebula. Their origin, however, is still uncertain.
Clusters within clusters
This image, from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), reveals thousands of globular clusters lying at the core of a galaxy cluster. It was created by a Hubble survey that drew on data from three of the telescopes separate observing programmes to explore the...
Collision leaves giant Jupiter bruised
This Hubble picture, taken on 23 July, is the first full-disc, natural-colour image of Jupiter made with Hubble's new camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is the sharpest visible-light picture of Jupiter since the New Horizons spacecraft flew by that planet in 2007. Each pixel in this...
Hubble studies sequences of star formation in neighbouring galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the iridescent tapestry of star birth in a neighbouring galaxy in this panoramic view of glowing gas, dark dust clouds, and young, hot stars. The star-forming region, catalogued as N11B lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located only 160,000...
Galaxy playing twister
The Hubble telescope has captured an image of an unusual edge-on galaxy, revealing remarkable details of its warped dusty disk and showing how colliding galaxies spawn the formation of new generations of stars. The dust and spiral arms of normal spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, appear...
Turquoise-tinted plumes in the Large Magellanic Cloud
The brightly glowing plumes seen in this image are reminiscent of an underwater scene, with turquoise-tinted currents and nebulous strands reaching out into the surroundings. However, this is no ocean. This image actually shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy...
New Hubble image of NGC 2174
To celebrate its 24th year in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has released this beautiful new image of part of NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head Nebula. NGC 2174 lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Hubble previously viewed this part of...
Spectacular Hubble view of Centaurus A
Centaurus A, also known as NGC 5128, is well known for its dramatic dusty lanes of dark material. Hubbles new observations, using its most advanced instrument, the Wide Field Camera 3, are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy. They have been combined here in a multi-wavelength image which...
Abell 2218
The picture shows Abell 2218, a rich galaxy cluster composed of thousands of individual galaxies. It sits about 2.1 billion light-years from the Earth (redshift 0.17) in the northern constellation of Draco. When used by astronomers as a powerful gravitational lens to magnify distant galaxies,...
A reflection nebula in Orion
Just weeks after NASA astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999, the Hubble Heritage Project snapped this picture of NGC 1999, a nebula in the constellation Orion. The Heritage astronomers, in collaboration with scientists in Texas and Ireland, used Hubble's Wide Field...
The Death of a Star
This atmospheric Picture of the Week, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a dark, gloomy scene in the constellation of Gemini (The Twins). The subject of this image confused astronomers when it was first studied rather than being classified as a single object, it was instead...
True colour image of impact zones D and G
This true colour image of the giant planet Jupiter, by NASA and ESA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the impact sites of fragments 'D' and 'G' from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
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