The beauty of asymmetry
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a planetary nebula with unconventional good looks. Planetary nebulae signal the demise of mid-sized stars (up to about eight times the mass of the Sun); when the stars hydrogen fuel supply is exhausted, its outer layers expand and cool, creating...
Hubble witnesses the crafting of a celestial masterpiece
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has used its Advanced Camera for Surveys to peer closely at the strange cloud of gas and dust that envelops a star at a late stage in its life, a short-lived phenomenon known as a protoplanetary, or pre-planetary nebula. These fascinating celestial objects...
A piercing eye in the sky
This dramatic image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the planetary nebula NGC 3918, a brilliant cloud of colourful gas in the constellation of Centaurus, around 4900 light-years from Earth. In the centre of the cloud of gas, and completely dwarfed by the nebula, are the dying...
Jupiter and Ganymede
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet. Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is tilted...
Hubble watches light echo from mysterious erupting star (October 2002 image)
This is the third in a sequence of four pictures from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys that dramatically demonstrates the echoing of light through space caused by an unusual stellar outburst in January 2002. The image was taken 28 October 2002. The image is...
On the hunt for newborn stars
This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a patch of space filled with galaxies of all shapes, colours, and sizes. WFC3 is able to view many such galaxies at an unprecedented resolution high enough to locate and study regions of star...
Extended groth strip - full Hubble image
The Extended Groth Strip, named after Princeton University physicist Edward Groth, is a small region in the constellation Ursa Major, based on the results of a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Extended Groth Strip is 1.1 degrees long by 0.15 degrees wide (70.5 x 10.1...
Mapping the nearby Universe
The distances to objects in the Universe can differ enormously. The nearest star to us Proxima Centauri lies some 4.2 light-years from us, while some incredibly distant galaxies are so far away 13 billion light-years or more that they are only visible to us as a result of cosmic tricks of...
Starbursts in NGC 5398
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture shows NGC 5398, a barred spiral galaxy located about 55 million light-years away. The galaxy is famous for containing an especially extensive HII region, a large cloud composed of ionised hydrogen (or HII, pronounced H-two, with H being the...
Mass map of galaxy cluster MCS J0416.12403 using strong and weak lensing
This image shows the galaxy MCS J0416.12403, one of six clusters targeted by the Hubble Frontier Fields programme. The varying intensity of blue hazein this image is a mass map created by using new Hubble observations combined with the magnifying power of a process known as gravitational...
Galaxy cluster MACS j1149.5+223
This image shows the huge galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+223, whose light took over 5 billion years to reach us. The huge mass of the cluster is bending the light from more distant objects. The light from these objects has been magnified and distorted due to gravitational lensing. The same effect...
A members-only galaxy club
This new Hubble image shows a handful of galaxies in the constellation of Eridanus (The River). NGC 1190, shown here on the right of the frame, stands apart from the rest; it belong to an exclusive club known as Hickson Compact Group 22 (HCG 22). There are four other members of this group, all...
A spiral in the Air Pump
Lying over 110 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Antlia (The Air Pump) is the spiral galaxy IC 2560, shown here in an image from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. At this distance it is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, and is part of the Antlia cluster a group of...
An audience of stellar flashbulbs
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a crowd of stars that looks rather like a stadium darkened before a show, lit only by the flashbulbs of the audiences cameras. Yet the many stars of this object, known as Messier 107, are not a fleeting phenomenon, at least by human reckoning of...
A tale of galactic collisions
When we look into the distant cosmos, the great majority of the objects we see are galaxies: immense gatherings of stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter, showing up in all kind of shapes. This Hubble picture registers several, but the galaxy catalogued as 2MASX J05210136-2521450 ...
A vapour of stars
Relatively few galaxies possess the sweeping, luminous spiral arms or brightly glowing centre of our home galaxy the Milky Way. In fact, most of the Universe's galaxies look like small, amorphous clouds of vapour. One of these galaxies is DDO 82, captured here in an image from the NASA/ESA...
A galactic disc, edge-on and up close
This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an exquisitely detailed view of part of the disc of the spiral galaxy NGC 4565. This bright galaxy is one of the most famous examples of an edge-on spiral galaxy, oriented perpendicularly to our line of sight so that we see right...
Hubble view of NGC 2366
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made detailed observations of the dwarf galaxy NGC 2366. While it lacks the elegant spiral arms of many larger galaxies, NGC 2366 is home to a bright, star-forming nebula and is close enough for astronomers to discern its individual stars.
The eye of the storm
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope could seem like a quiet patch of sky at first glance. But zooming into the central part of a galaxy cluster one of the largest structures of the Universe is rather like looking at the eye of the storm. Clusters of galaxies are large groups...
Hubble image of Messier 9
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the globular cluster Messier 9. Hubbles image resolves stars right into the centre of the cluster, and clearly shows they have different colours. Redder colours signify lower surface temperatures, while blue stars are extremely hot.
A spiral galaxy in Hydra
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 4980, a spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Hydra. The shape of NGC 4980 appears slightly deformed, something which is often a sign of recent tidal interactions with another galaxy. In this galaxys case, however, this...
Stellar voyage of a butterfly-like planetary nebula
The breathtaking butterfly-like planetary nebula NGC 6881 is visible here in an image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation of Cygnus, it is formed of an inner nebula, estimated to be about one fifth of a light-year across, and symmetrical wings that spread...
Young stars at home in an ancient cluster
Looking like a hoard of gems fit for an emperors collection, this deep sky object called NGC 6752 is in fact far more worthy of admiration. It is a globular cluster, and at over 10 billion years old is one the most ancient collections of stars known. It has been blazing for well over twice as...
Sunset glow in Orion
The magnificent reflection nebula NGC 2023 lies nearly 1500 light-years from Earth. It is located within the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), in a prestigious area of the sky close to the well-known Flame and Horsehead Nebulae. The entire structure of NGC 2023 is vast, at four light-years...
Pandoras Cluster The merging galaxy cluster Abell 2744
This image of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 combines data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys, with an image taken with the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (VLT). Hubble provides the central, most detailed part of the image, while the VLT, which...
Rare cosmic footprint
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to capture a striking image of a rare astronomical phenomenon called a protoplanetary nebula. This particular example, called Minkowskis Footprint, also known as Minkowski 92, features two vast onion-shaped structures either side of an ageing...
Family of stars breaking up
Most of the rich globular star clusters that orbit the Milky Way have cores that are tightly packed with stars, but NGC 288 is one of a minority of low-concentration globulars, with its stars more loosely bound together. This new image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble...
A great ball of stars
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has turned its sharp eye towards a tight collection of stars, first seen 174 years ago. The result is a sparkling image of NGC 1806, tens of thousands of stars gravitationally bound into a rich cluster. Commonly called globular clusters, most of these objects...
A cosmic question in NGC 4696
This picture, taken by Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster. The huge dust lane, around 30000 light-years across, that sweeps across the face of the galaxy makes NGC 4696 look different from most other elliptical galaxies. Viewed at...
A star's colourful final splash
The Hubble Space Telescope captured this beautiful image of NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a central star nearing the end of its life. When a star ages and the red giant phase of its life comes to an end, it starts to eject layers of gas...
Feeling Edgy
Believe it or not, this long, luminous streak, speckled with bright blisters and pockets of material, is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way. But how could that be? It turns out that we see this galaxy, named NGC 3432, orientated directly edge-on to us from our vantage point here on Earth. The...
Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 image details star birth in galaxy M83
The spectacular new camera installed on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star...
Intergalactic pipeline
This visible-light picture, taken by the Hubble telescope, reveals an intergalactic 'pipeline' of material flowing between two battered galaxies that bumped into each other about 100 million years ago. The pipeline [the dark string of matter] begins in NGC 1410 [the galaxy at left], crosses...
Galactic Cherry Blossom
The galaxy NGC 1156 resembles a delicate cherry blossom tree flowering in springtime in this Hubble Picture of the Week. The many bright "blooms" within the galaxy are in fact stellar nurseries regions where new stars are springing to life. Energetic light emitted by newborn stars in these...
A cosmic searchlight
Streaming out from the centre of the galaxy M87 like a cosmic searchlight is one of nature's most amazing phenomena, a black-hole-powered jet of electrons and other sub-atomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. In this Hubble telescope image, the blue jet contrasts with the...
The expansion of Eta Carinae debris
The massive star Eta Carinae (almost hidden in the center) underwent a giant explosion some 150 years ago. The outburst spread the material that is visible today in this very sharp Hubble image. Even though Eta Carinae is more than 8,000 light-years away, structures only 15 thousand million...
The darkness within?
This atmospheric image shows a galaxy named Messier 85, captured in all its delicate, hazy glory by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Messier 85 slants through the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenices Hair), and lies around 50 million light-years from Earth. It was first discovered by...
Come a little closer
This Picture of the Week stars Messier 90, a beautiful spiral galaxy located roughly 60 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy is part of the Virgo Cluster, a gathering of galaxies that is over 1200 strong. This image combines infrared,...
Tangled cosmic edition
This dark, tangled web is an object named SNR 0454-67.2. It formed in a very violent fashion it is a supernova remnant, created after a massive star ended its life in a cataclysmic explosion and threw its constituent material out into surrounding space. This created the messy formation we see...
NGC 604 a gigantic gas cloud in the Triangulum Galaxy
This image shows NGC 604, located within the Triangulum Galaxy. Some 1500 light-years across, this is one of the largest, brightest concentrations of ionised hydrogen (H II) in our Local Group of galaxies, and it is a major centre of star formation. The gas in NGC 604, around nine-tenths of...
Peering into the past
This picture showcases a gravitational lensing system called SDSS J0928+2031. Quite a few images of this type of lensing have been featured as Pictures of the Week in past months, as NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope data is currently being used to research how stars form and evolve in distant...
Of bent time and jellyfish
At first glance, a bright blue crescent immediately jumps out of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image: is it a bird? A plane? Evidence of extraterrestrial life? No its a galaxy. The shape of this galaxy admittedly appears to be somewhat bizarre, so confusion would be forgiven. This is...
Feeling blue
This captivating image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field Camera 3 shows a lonely dwarf galaxy, a staggering 100 million light-years away from Earth. This image depicts the blue compact dwarf galaxy ESO 338-4, which can be found in the constellation of Corona Australis (the...
Helping Hubble
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope doesnt usually get much assistance from its celestial subjects but to take this image, the telescope opted for teamwork and made good use of a fascinating cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. This effect works when the gravitational influence of...
Rings upon rings
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a spiral galaxy named Messier 95 (also known as M95 or NGC 3351). Located about 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), this swirling spiral was discovered by astronomer Pierre Mchain in 1781, and catalogued...
A galaxy with a bright heart
This Picture of the Week shows the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 5033, located about 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). The galaxy is similar in size to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, at just over 100 000 light-years across. Like in the Milky Way...
The Milky Ways big sister
This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a beautiful spiral galaxy called NGC 6744. At first glance, it resembles our Milky Way albeit larger, measuring more than 200 000 light-years across compared to 100 000 light-year diameter for our home...
Warped and distorted
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image contains a veritable mix of different galaxies, some of which belong to the same larger structure: At the middle of the frame sits the galaxy cluster SDSS J1050+0017. The gigantic mass of this cluster creates the fascinating phenomenon of strong...
Knots and bursts
In the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) lies the impressive Coma Cluster a structure of over a thousand galaxies bound together by gravity. Many of these galaxies are elliptical types, as is the brighter of the two galaxies dominating this image: NGC 4860 (centre)....
A globular clusters striking red eye
This Picture of the Week shows the colourful globular cluster NGC 2108. The cluster is nestled within the Large Magellanic Cloud, in the constellation of the Swordfish (Dorado). It was discovered in 1835 by the astronomer, mathematician, chemist and inventor John Herschel, son of the famous...
Zooming in on the early Universe
This busy image is a treasure trove of wonders. Bright stars from the Milky Way sparkle in the foreground, the magnificent swirls of several spiral galaxies are visible across the frame, and a glowing assortment of objects at the centre make up a massive galaxy cluster. Such clusters are the...
Major mergers
At first glance, it may seem as though this image was taken through a faulty lens, but the mind-bending distortions visible in this Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 impressive image are actually caused by a cosmic phenomenon. The bright object at the centre of the frame is the galaxy cluster SDSS...
A failed supernova?
Glowing warmly against the dark backdrop of the Universe, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows an irregular galaxy called UGC 12682. Located approximately 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (The Winged Horse), UGC 12682 is distorted and...
An aging beauty
This rich and dense smattering of stars is a massiveglobular cluster, a gravitationally-bound collection of stars that orbits the Milky Way. Globular clusters are denser and more spherical than open star clusters like the famousPleiades. They typically contain hundreds of thousands of stars...
One galaxy, three supernovae
In astronomy, the devil is in the details as this image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3, demonstrates. The numerous fuzzy blobs and glowing shapes scattered across this image make up a galaxy cluster named RXC J0949.8+1707....
Strings of homeless stars
This sparkling Picture of the Week features a massive galaxy cluster named RXC J0232.2-4420. This image was taken by Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy...
Threads of blue
A ripple of bright blue threads through this galaxy like a misshapen lake system. The foreground of this image is littered with nearby stars with their gleaming diffraction spikes. A keen eye can also spot a few other galaxies that, while masquerading as stars at first glance, reveal their true...
Parts of Messier 106
Messier 106, also known as NGC 4258, is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, a little over 20 million light-years away. This makes it one of the nearest spiral galaxies. Despite carrying his name, Messier 106 was neither discovered nor catalogued by the renowned 18th-century astronomer Charles...
Dwarf galaxy UGCA 281
UGCA 281 is a blue compact dwarf galaxy located in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Within it, two giant star clusters appear brilliant white and are swaddled by greenish hydrogen gas clouds. These clusters are responsible for most of the recent star formation in UGCA 281; the rest of the...
Wave of star formation in Messier 96
Messier 96, also known as NGC 3368, is a spiral galaxy about 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is of about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. It was first discovered by astronomer Pierre Mchain in 1781, and added to Charles Messiers famous catalogue of...
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