The smoking gun of a newborn star
In this image the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the smoking gun of a newborn star, the HerbigHaro objects numbered 7 to 11 (HH 711). These five objects, visible in blue in the top centre of the image, lie within NGC 1333, a reflection nebula full of gas and dust found about a...
Looking down a barrel of gas at a doomed star
One of the most famous of all planetary nebulae. A dying star has thrown off some of its outer material thousands of years ago. The nebula is situated 2.000 light years away in the constellation Lyra.
Galaxy cluster MACS J2129-0741
This image is a wide-field view of the galaxy cluster MACS J2129-0741, located in the constellation Aquarius (the Water-Bearer). The massive galaxy cluster magnifies, brightens, and distorts the images of remote background galaxies, including the far-distant, dead disc galaxy MACS2129-1. Links:...
More than meets the eye
Despite the advances made in past decades, the process of galaxy formation remains an open question in astronomy. Various theories have been suggested, but since galaxies come in all shapes and sizes including elliptical, spiral, and irregular no single theory has so far been able to...
Smoke ring for a halo
Two stars shine through the centre of a ring of cascading dust in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The star system is named DI Cha, and while only two stars are apparent, it is actually a quadruple system containing two sets of binary stars. As this is a relatively young...
An intriguing young-looking dwarf galaxy
The bright streak of glowing gas and stars in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is known as PGC 51017, or SBSG 1415+437. It is type of galaxy known as a blue compact dwarf. This particular dwarf is well studied and has an interesting star formation history. Astronomers initially...
Starbursts versus monsters
The dominating figure in the middle of this new Hubble image is a galaxy known as MCG-03-04-014. It belongs to a class of galaxies called luminous infrared galaxies galaxies that are incredibly bright in the infrared part of the spectrum. This galaxy's status as a luminous infrared galaxy...
Merging galaxies in the distant Universe through a gravitational magnifying glass
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and many other telescopes on the ground and in space have been used to obtain the best view yet of a collision that took place between two galaxies when the Universe was only half its current age. The astronomers enlisted the help of a galaxy-sized magnifying...
Hubble photographs grand design spiral galaxy M81
The sharpest image ever taken of the large "grand design" spiral galaxy M81 is being released today at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.A spiral-shaped system of stars, dust, and gas clouds, the galaxy's arms wind all the way down into the nucleus. Though the galaxy...
Hubble spies a UFO
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a UFO well, the UFO Galaxy, to be precise. NGC 2683 is a spiral galaxy seen almost edge-on, giving it the shape of a classic science fiction spaceship. This is why the astronomers at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory gave it this...
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 7026, a planetary nebula. Located just beyond the tip of the tail of the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), this butterfly-shaped cloud of glowing gas and dust is the wreckage of a star similar to the Sun. Planetary nebulae, despite...
Hubble images searchlight beams from a preplanetary nebula
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been at the cutting edge of research into what happens to stars like our Sun at the ends of their lives (see for example Hubblecast 51). One stage that stars pass through as they run out of nuclear fuel is the preplanetary, or protoplanetary nebula. This...
Arcade adventure for young stars
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the young open star cluster IC 1590, which is found within the star formation region NGC 281 nicknamed the Pacman Nebula due to its resemblance to the famous arcade game character. This image only shows the central part of the...
Core of Messier 100 in super high res
Messier 100 is a perfect example of a grand design spiral galaxy, a type of galaxy with prominent and very well-defined spiral arms. These dusty structures swirl around the galaxys nucleus, and are marked by a flurry of star formation activity that dots Messier 100 with bright blue, high-mass...
The star city that never sleeps
Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has captured this moment in the ever-changing life of a spiral galaxy called IC 391. Although these massive star cities appear static and unchanging, their stellar inhabitants are constantly moving and evolving, with new stars being born and old stars...
Waves breaking in the stellar lagoon
This close-up shot of the centre of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) clearly shows the delicate structures formed when the powerful radiation of young stars interacts with the hydrogen cloud they formed from. This image was created from exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced...
The majestic globular Omega Centauri
A new discovery has resolved some of the mystery surrounding Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. Images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and data obtained by the GMOS spectrograph on the Gemini South...
The core of the massive compact star cluster in NGC 3603
The core of the star cluster in NGC 3603 is shown in great detail in an image from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) camera on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image is a colour composite of observations in the WFPC2 filters F555W (blue), F675W (green) and F814W (red). This view...
WFC3 infrared image of Carina Nebula
Composed of gas and dust, the pictured pillar resides in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. Taken in infrared light, the image shows the dense column and the surrounding greenish-coloured gas all but...
Colourful stars galore inside the globular star cluster Omega Centauri
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colourful assortment of 100 000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars. Globular...
Hubble celebrates the International Year of Astronomy 2009 with the galaxy triplet Arp 274
In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photographed the winning target in the Space Telescope Science Institute's "You Decide" competition. The image of the winner, a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 274, was revealed during ESO's...
Quadruple Saturn moon transit snapped by Hubble
On 24 February 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. The moons, from far left to right, are the white icy moons Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the angle of the...
Hubble image of NGC 3324
Located in the Southern Hemisphere, NGC 3324 is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years, and lies in the constellation...
NGC 1275 multi-wavelength composite
The behemoth galaxy NGC 1275, also known as Perseus A, lies at the centre of Perseus Galaxy Cluster. By combining multi-wavelength images into this single composite, the dynamics of the galaxy become visible. Detail and structure from optical, radio and X-ray wavelengths have been combined for...
Hubble sees stars and a stripe in celestial fireworks
These columns that resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern columns are in fact cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that act as incubators for new stars. Inside them and on their surface astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas. These are called EGGs (acronym...
Galaxy NGC 2397 with an explosive secret
NGC 2397, pictured in this image from Hubble, is a classic spiral galaxy with long prominent dust lanes along the edges of its arms, seen as dark patches and streaks silhouetted against the starlight. Hubble's exquisite resolution allows the study of individual stars in nearby galaxies. Located...
Mars: closest approach 2007
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 88 million kilometers away. This colour image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Mars will be...
Arp 87
Arp 87 is a stunning pair of interacting galaxies. Stars, gas, and dust flow from the large spiral galaxy, NGC 3808, forming an enveloping arm around its companion. The shapes of both galaxies have been distorted by their gravitational interaction. Arp 87 is located in the constellation of Leo,...
Extraterrestrial fireworks
In the wake of Independence Day festivities surrounding the U.S. July 4th holiday, astronomers and image processors at the Space Telescope Science Institute are releasing the Hubble Space Telescope image of a cosmic explosion that is quite similar to fireworks on Earth. In the nearby galaxy,...
Hubble monitors Jupiter in support of the New Horizons Flyby
The Hubble Space Telescope has recently taken images of the planet Jupiter in support of its sister NASA Mission - New Horizons. The New Horizons spacecraft is en route to Pluto, and made its closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, 2007. Jupiter is giving New Horizons a gravity assist that...
Magellanic gemstone in the southern sky [NGC 265]
Hubble has captured the most detailed image to date of the open star cluster NGC 265 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The image taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope show a myriad of stars in crystal clear detail. The brilliant open star cluster,...
A bright supernova in the nearby galaxy NGC 2403
The explosion of a massive star blazes with the light of 200 million Suns in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The arrow at top right points to the stellar blast, called a supernova. The supernova is so bright in this image that it easily could be mistaken for a foreground star in our...
Hubble snaps images of a pinwheel-shaped galaxy
This dramatic spiral galaxy is one of the latest viewed by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Stunning details of the face-on spiral galaxy, cataloged as NGC 1309, are captured in this colour image. NGC 1309 was home to supernova SN 2002fk, whose light reached Earth in September 2002. NGC 1309...
Sculpting the landscape
This glowing region reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected by the Trapezium stars - collide with material.
Hubble peers inside a celestial geode
In this unusual image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures a rare view of the celestial equivalent of a geode - a gas cavity carved by the stellar wind and intense ultraviolet radiation from a young hot star. Real geodes are handball-sized, hollow rocks that start out as bubbles in...
Celestial composition
Amid a backdrop of far-off galaxies, the majestic dusty spiral, NGC 3370, looms in the foreground in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. Recent observations taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys show intricate spiral arm structure spotted with hot areas of new star formation. But...
The heart of the Trifid Nebula
The Trifid Nebula, cataloged by astronomers as Messier 20 or NGC 6514, is a well-known region of star formation lying within our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is called the Trifid because the nebula is overlain by three bands of obscuring interstellar dust, giving it a trisected appearance as seen...
An abrasive collision gives one galaxy a "black eye"
A collision of two galaxies has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well as bizarre internal motions. Messier 64 (M64) has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, giving rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy....
Supernova blast bonanza in nearby galaxy
The nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 is a hotbed of vigorous star birth activity which blows huge bubbles and super-bubbles that riddle the main body of the galaxy. The galaxy's vigorous "star factories" are also manufacturing brilliant blue star clusters. This galaxy had a sudden and relatively...
Firestorm of star birth seen in a Local Galaxy
This festively colorful nebula, called NGC 604, is one of the largest known seething cauldrons of star birth in a nearby galaxy. NGC 604 is similar to familiar star-birth regions inour Milky Way galaxy, such as the Orion Nebula, but it is vastlylarger in extent and contains many more recently...
Rainbow image of a dusty star
Resembling a rippling pool illuminated by underwater lights, the Egg Nebula offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an aging star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms...
N83B - massive infant stars rock their cradle
Extremely intense radiation from newly born, ultra-bright stars has blown a glowing spherical bubble in the nebula N83B, also known as NGC 1748. A new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image has helped to decipher the complex interplay of gas and radiation of a star-forming region in a nearby...
Uncovering the mysteries of Jupiter's aurora
This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on 26 November 1998 and gives a good impression of the observations that Hubble will make in the weeks to come. The bright emissions above the dark blue background are auroral lights, similar...
Galactic silhouettes
Through an extraordinary chance alignment, the Hubble telescope has captured a view of a face-on spiral galaxy lying precisely in front of another larger spiral. The unique pair is called NGC 3314. This line-up provides astronomers with the rare chance to see the dark material within the...
Trapezium Cluster in the Orion Nebula
Probing deep within a neighborhood stellar nursery, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope uncovered a swarm of newborn brown dwarfs. The orbiting observatory's near-infrared camera revealed about 50 of these objects throughout the Orion Nebula's Trapezium cluster about 1,500 light-years from Earth.
The glowing eye of NGC 6751
The Hubble telescope has spied a giant celestial 'eye', known as planetary nebula NGC 6751. The Hubble Heritage Project is releasing this picture to commemorate the Hubble telescope's tenth anniversary. Glowing in the constellation Aquila, the nebula is a cloud of gas ejected several thousand...
An expanding bubble in space
Astronomers, using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope in October and November 1997 and April 1999, imaged the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) with unprecedented clarity. For the first time, they are able to understand the geometry and dynamics of this very...
N159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of a turbulent cauldron of starbirth, called N159, taking place 170,000 light-years away in our satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Torrential stellar winds from hot newborn massive stars within the nebula sculpt ridges, arcs, and filaments...
Hubble snapshot captures life cycle of stars
The very energetic radiation from young hot stars in the star cluster NGC 3603 is bursting into colder gas and dust making the gas glow. The radiation from the stars has blown a 'bubble' around the cluster free from gas.
Ground-based view of the sky around the nearby star AU Microscopii
, This image shows the sky around the nearby young star AU Microscopii. It was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. AU Mic appears just below the centre of the image as an orangish star of moderate brightness. Because the photographs through different coloured filters...
Supernova 1994D
Hubble Space Telescope image of supernova 1994D in galaxy NGC 4526.
Hubble finds variable stars in distant spiral galaxy
A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) view of the magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4603, the most distant galaxy in which a special class of pulsating stars called Cepheid variables have been found. It is associated with the Centaurus cluster, one of the most massive assemblages of galaxies in...
SN 1987a in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Glittering stars and wisps of gas create a breathtaking backdrop for the self-destruction of a massive star, called supernova 1987A, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy. Astronomers in the Southern hemisphere witnessed the brilliant explosion of this star on Feb. 23, 1987. Shown in...
Blowing cosmic bubbles
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals an expanding shell of glowing gas surrounding a hot, massive star in our Milky Way Galaxy. The shell is being shaped by strong stellar winds of material and radiation produced by the bright star at the left, which is 10 to 20 times more massive...
A sky full of glittering jewels
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has given us a keyhole view towards the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy, where a dazzling array of stars reside. Most of the view of our galaxy is obscured by dust. Hubble peered into the Sagittarius Star Cloud, a narrow, dust-free region, providing this...
Massive starbirth in N81
A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope 'family portrait' of young, ultra-bright stars nested in their embryonic cloud of glowing gases. The celestial maternity ward, called N81, is located 200, 000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a small irregular satellite galaxy of our Milky...
Disk around a black hole in galaxy NGC 7052 (Hubble WFPC2 view)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, in visible light. Details as small as 50 light-years across can be seen.
Galaxy NGC 4314 (Hubble view)
This close-up view by Hubble also shows other interesting details in the galaxy's core: dust lanes, a smaller bar of stars, dust and gas embedded in the stellar ring, and an extra pair of spiral arms packed with young stars. These details make the centreresemble a miniature version of a spiral...
An infrared view of Saturn
In honor of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's eighth anniversary, we have gift wrapped Saturn in vivid colours. Actually, this image is courtesy of the new Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), which has taken its first peek at Saturn. The false-color image - taken...
Hubble sees supersonic exhaust from nebula
M2-9 is a striking example of a 'butterfly' or a bipolar planetary nebula. Another more revealing name might be the 'Twin Jet Nebula'. If the nebula is sliced across the star, each side of it appears much like a pair of exhausts from jet engines. Indeed, because of the nebula's shape and the...
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