One ring to rule them all
Galaxies can take many forms elliptical blobs, swirling spiral arms, bulges, and discs are all known components of the wide range of galaxies we have observed using telescopes like the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. However, some of the more intriguing objects in the sky around us ...
A side-on spiral streak
This thin, glittering streak of stars is the spiral galaxy ESO 121-6, which lies in the southern constellation of Pictor (The Painter's Easel). Viewed almost exactly side-on, the intricate structure of the swirling arms is hidden, but the full length of the galaxy can be seen including...
Cosmic flying V of merging galaxies
This large flying V is actually two distinct objects a pair of interacting galaxies known as IC 2184. Both the galaxies are seen almost edge-on in the large, faint northern constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), and can be seen as bright streaks of light surrounded by the ghostly...
Glowing, fiery shells of gas
It may look like something from The Lord of the Rings, but this fiery swirl is actually a planetary nebula known as ESO 456-67. Set against a backdrop of bright stars, the rust-coloured object lies in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), in the southern sky. Despite the name,...
The moment the lights went out
The further away you look, the further back in time you see. Astronomers use this fact to study the evolution of the Universe by looking at nearby and more distant galaxies and comparing their features. Hubble is particularly well suited for this type of work because of its extremely high...
Appearances can be deceptive
Globular clusters are roughly spherical collections of extremely old stars, and around 150 of them are scattered around our galaxy. Hubble is one of the best telescopes for studying these, as its extremely high resolution lets astronomers see individual stars, even in the crowded core. The ...
A busy patch of the Great Attractor
A busy patch of space has been captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Scattered with many nearby stars, the field also has numerous galaxies in the background. Located on the border of Triangulum Australe (The Southern Triangle) and Norma (The Carpenters Square),...
Dont trust your eyes
The Universe loves to fool our eyes, giving the impression that celestial objects are located at the same distance from Earth. A good example can be seen in this spectacular image produced by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxies NGC 5011B and NGC 5011C are imaged against a starry...
An archetypal dwarf galaxy
The constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) is home to Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. One of the biggest and brightest spiral galaxies in the night sky, Messier 101 is also the subject of one of Hubble's most famous images (heic0602). Like the Milky Way, Messier 101 is not alone,...
A wanderer dancing the dance of stars and space
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provides us this week with a spectacular image of the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097. In this image, the larger-scale structure of the galaxy is barely visible: its comparatively dim spiral arms, which...
Glitter galaxy An edge-on view of the ESO 318-13 galaxy
The brilliant cascade of stars through the middle of this image is the galaxy ESO 318-13 as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Despite being located millions of light-years from Earth, the stars captured in this image are so bright and clear you could almost attempt to count...
Galaxy cluster MACS J0647.7+7015
This view from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0647.7+7015. Astronomers used the powerful gravity from the cluster to magnify the light from a distant galaxy, using an effect called gravitational lensing. The bright yellow galaxies near the center of the image...
A galaxy colourfully waning
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a beautiful galaxy that, with its reddish and yellow central area, looks rather like an explosion from a Hollywood movie. The galaxy, called NGC 5010, is in a period of transition. The aging galaxy is moving on from life as a spiral galaxy, like...
An unexpected population of young-looking stars
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers an impressive view of the centre of globular cluster NGC 6362. The image of this spherical collection of stars takes a deeper look at the core of the globular cluster, which contains a high concentration of stars with different colours. Tightly ...
Visible-light and x-ray composite image of galaxy cluster 1E 0657-556
This composite image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-556, also known as the "bullet cluster." This cluster was formed after the collision of two large clusters of galaxies, the most energetic event known in the universe since the Big Bang. Hot gas detected by Chandra in X-rays is seen as two...
Violent star formation episodes in dwarf galaxies
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the faint irregular galaxy NGC 3738, a starburst galaxy. The galaxy is in the midst of a violent episode of star formation, during which it is converting reservoirs of hydrogen gas harboured in the galaxys centre into stars. Hubble spots this gas...
Galaxy in a spin
NGC 3344 is a glorious spiral galaxy around half the size of the Milky Way, which lies 25 million light-years distant. We are fortunate enough to see NGC 3344 face-on, allowing us to study its structure in detail. The galaxy features an outer ring swirling around an inner ring with a subtle bar...
Brightest galaxy in Abell 2261
The giant elliptical galaxy in the centre of this image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the most massive and brightest member of the galaxy cluster Abell 2261. Astronomers refer to it as the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). Spanning a little over one million light-years, the...
Ground-based image of Arp 116 and its surroundings
This image from a ground-based telescope shows the galaxy pair Arp 116 (made up of the elliptical galaxy M60 and the spiral galaxy NGC 4647) and its surroundings.
A cosmic garden sprinkler
The Universe is filled with mysterious objects. Many of them are as strange as they are beautiful. Among these, planetary nebulae are probably one of the most fascinating objects to behold in the night sky. No other type of object has such a large variety of shapes and structures. The ...
Location of galaxy candidate MACS1149-JD
The red dot in the centre of this image is the newfound galaxy MACS1149-JD observed using the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect. MACS1149-JD could be the most distant galaxy ever observed andopens a window onto the deepest,...
Galaxy candidate MACS1149-JD closeup
This image shows a deep zoom of the newfound galaxy MACS1149-JD, observed using the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and a cosmic magnification effect. MACS1149-JD could be the most distant galaxy ever observed and opens a window onto the deepest, most remote epochs...
Galaxy cluster MACS J1149+2223
In this image the many galaxies of the massive cluster MACS J1149+2223 dominate the scene. This cluster played an important role in discovery of the newfound galaxy, known as MACS1149-JD.Gravitational lensing by this giant cluster brightened the light from the galaxysome 15 times, a galaxy...
Hubble image of galaxy pair Arp 116
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the peculiar galaxy pair called Arp 116. Arp 116 is composed of a giant elliptical galaxy known as Messier 60, and a much smaller spiral galaxy, NGC 4647. Astronomers have long tried to determine whether these two galaxies are actually ...
NGC 7090 An actively star-forming galaxy
This image portrays a beautiful view of the galaxy NGC 7090, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy is viewed edge-on from the Earth, meaning we cannot easily see the spiral arms, which are full of young, hot stars. However, our side-on view shows the galaxys disc and the...
Spotting a supernova in NGC 5806
A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5806, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo (the Virgin). It lies around 80 million light years from Earth. Also visible in this image is a supernova explosion called SN 2004dg. The exposures that are combined into this...
A lonely galactic island
In terms of intergalactic real estate, our Solar System has a plumb location as part of a big, spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. Numerous, less glamorous dwarf galaxies, keep the Milky Way company. Many galaxies, however, are comparatively isolated, without close neighbours. One such example...
Close encounter with the Tarantula
Turning its 2.4-metre eye to the Tarantula Nebula, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken this close-up of the outskirts of the main cloud of the Nebula. The bright wispy structures are the signature of an environment rich in ionised hydrogen gas, called H II by astronomers. In reality...
A ten billion year stellar dance
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers this delightful view of the crowded stellar encampment called Messier 68, a spherical, star-filled region of space known as a globular cluster. Mutual gravitational attraction amongst a clusters hundreds of thousands or even millions of stars keeps...
Edge-on beauty
Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The...
A galaxy festooned with stellar nurseries
The galaxy NGC 4700 bears the signs of the vigorous birth of many new stars in this image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The many bright, pinkish clouds in NGC 4700 are known as H II regions, where intense ultraviolet light from hot young stars is causing nearby hydrogen...
Red giant blows a bubble
A bright star is surrounded by a tenuous shell of gas in this unusual image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. U Camelopardalis, or U Cam for short, is a star nearing the end of its life. As it begins to run low on fuel, it is becoming unstable. Every few thousand years, it coughs out a...
Galaxies' El Dorado
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the galaxy NGC 1483. NGC 1483 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the southern constellation of Dorado the dolphinfish in Spanish. The nebulous galaxy features a bright central bulge and diffuse arms with distinct...
Hubble peeks inside a stellar cloud
These bright stars shining through what looks like a haze in the night sky are part of a young stellar grouping in one of the largest known star formation regions of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The image was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...
Antlia dwarf galaxy peppers the sky with stars
The myriad faint stars that comprise the Antlia Dwarf galaxy are more than four million light-years from Earth, but this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image offers such clarity that they could be mistaken for much closer stars in our own Milky Way. This very faint and sparsely populated small...
A sheep in Wolf-Rayets clothing
Its well known that the Universe is changeable: even the stars that appear static and predictable every night are subject to change. This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows planetary nebula Hen 3-1333. Planetary nebulae are nothing to do with planets they actually...
Faint galaxy with popping pink features
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a region of space containing the intriguing object IC 2574. Pink bubbles blown by supernova explosions abound in this faint galaxy. The colour of these shells comes from hydrogen gas irradiated by newborn stars. The formation of the stars was...
HST PHAT detail of M31
This detailed image reveals a rich population of blue stars huddled around the core. Dark dust clouds also are visible. The image is 740 light-years wide. The image is part of a census of stars in M31 called the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury survey.
HST PHAT wide image of M31
This image is 7,900 light-years across and reveals the Andromeda galaxy's crowded central region. The bright area near the centre of the image is a grouping of stars nestled around the galaxy's black hole. The blue dots sprinkled throughout the image are ultra-blue stars whose population...
Hubble spots a busy barred spiral
This classic shot of a galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 3259 is a bright barred spiral galaxy located approximately 110 million light-years from Earth. Being a fully-formed active galaxy, its bright central bulge hosts a ...
Standing out from the crowd
The compact nature of globular clusters is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, having so many stars of a similar age in one bundle gives astronomers insights into the chemical makeup of our galaxy in its early history. But, at the same time, the high density of stars in the cores of...
GOODS South field
Among other data, scientists used the galaxies visible in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) to recalculate the total number of galaxies in the observable Universe. The image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and covers a portion of the southern field of GOODS....
Hubble sizes up a dwarf galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken this image of the Phoenix Dwarf Galaxy, which is located 1.4 million light-years away from Earth. It is located in the constellation of Phoenix in the southern sky. The object, a dwarf irregular galaxy, features younger stars in its inner regions...
A snapshot of galactic evolution
Galaxies come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and these features change as they evolve. Some, like the galaxy in the centre of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, are beautiful spirals with graceful curved arms, while others are fuzzy oval-shaped blobs like the large object...
A remote outpost of the Milky Way
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a compact and distant globular star cluster that lies in one of the smallest constellations in the night sky, Delphinus (The Dolphin). Due to its modest size, great distance and relatively low brightness, NGC 7006 is often ignored by amateur...
A starfish in the sky
In the constellation of Aquila (the Eagle), lies a star nearing the end of its life that is surrounded by a starfish-shaped cloud of gas and dust. A striking image of this object, known as IRAS 19024+0044 has been captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomical vision test
Peering into the depths of space, the sharp-eyed NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the nearby but faint dwarf galaxy ESO 540-030. This object itself appears as a huge swarm of dim stars, but ESO 540-030 is actually just one point of interest in the picture. ESO 540-030 is just over 11...
Stars in the Andromeda Galaxys halo with background galaxies (2)
This image shows NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images of a small part of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. The halo is the huge and sparse sphere of stars that surrounds a galaxy. While there are relatively few stars in a galaxys halo, studies of the rotation rate of galaxies suggest that...
Stars in the Andromeda Galaxys halo with background galaxies (1)
This image shows NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images of a small part of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. The halo is the huge and sparse sphere of stars that surrounds a galaxy. While there are relatively few stars in a galaxys halo, studies of the rotation rate of galaxies suggest that...
Stars in the Andromeda Galaxys giant stellar stream
This image shows NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images of a small part of the giant stellar stream of the Andromeda Galaxy. The stream is a long structure thought to be the remains of a companion galaxy torn apart by the Andromeda Galaxys gravity and engulfed in it. Hubbles position above the...
X-rays, dark matter and galaxies in cluster Abell 2744
This image combines visible light exposures of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope, with X-ray data from NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory and a mathematical reconstruction of the location of dark...
Fiery young stars wreak havoc in stellar nursery
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a violent stellar nursery called NGC 2174, in which stars are born in a first-come-first-served feeding frenzy for survival. The problem is that star formation is a very inefficient process; most of the ingredients to make stars are wasted as the...
The secret of stellar youth
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a clear view of the unusual globular cluster Palomar 1, whose youthful beauty is a puzzle for astronomers. This faint and sparse object is very different from the more familiar brilliant and very rich globular clusters and had to wait until 1954...
Hubble ACS visible image of M51
This image by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows a face-on view of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. Taken in visible light, it highlights the attributes of a typical spiral galaxy, including graceful, curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of...
The impending destruction of NGC 1427A
What happens when a galaxy falls in with the wrong crowd? The irregular galaxy NGC 1427A is a spectacular example of the resulting stellar rumble. Under the gravitational grasp of a large gang of galaxies, called the Fornax cluster, the small bluish galaxy is plunging headlong into the group at...
Dying star cocooned within its own gases
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to image the tiny planetary nebula NGC 6886. These celestial objects signal the final death throes of mid-sized stars (up to about eight times the mass of the Sun); when such a star exhausts its supply of hydrogen fuel, the outer layers...
Young stars biting the cloud that feeds them
A billowing cloud of hydrogen in the Triangulum galaxy (Messier 33), about 2.7 million light-years away from Earth, glows with the energy released by hundreds of young, bright stars. This NASA/ESA Hubble Spare Telescope image provides the sharpest view of NGC 604 so far obtained. Some 1500...
Hubble watches light echo from mysterious erupting star (May 2002 image)
This is the first 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 unusal stellar outburst in January 2002. The image was taken on 20 May 2002. The image is...
Hubble watches light echo from mysterious erupting star (September 2002 image)
This is the second 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 2 September 2002. The image is...
Blue rejuvenation
Globular clusters are inherently beautiful objects, but the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Messier 3, is commonly acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of them all. Containing an incredible half a million stars, this eight-billion-year-old cosmic bauble is one...
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