Behind a dusty veil lies a cradle of star birth
NGC 253 is a large, almost edge-on spiral galaxy, and is one of the nearest galaxies beyond our local neighborhood of galaxies. This dramatic galaxy shows complex structures such as clumpy gas clouds, darkened dust lanes, and young, luminous central star clusters. These elements are typical of...
Wide 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 photograph, which is stranger than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years high,...
NGC 6050
Arp 272 is a remarkable collision between two spiral galaxies, NGC 6050 and IC 1179, and is part of the Hercules Galaxy Cluster, located in the constellation of Hercules. The galaxy cluster is part of the Great Wall of clusters and superclusters, the largest known structure in the Universe. The...
Hubble Space Telescope: Kepler's supernova remnant (close-up, visible-light data)
Four hundred years ago a "new star" appeared in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nearby planets. In fact this 'new star' was a supernova, now named Kepler's supernova, and was the last such object seen to explode in our Milky Way galaxy.Seen here are some of its remains. This...
Hubble's sharpest ever colour view
This view of Mars, the sharpest photo ever taken from Earth, reveals small craters and other surface markings only about a dozen miles (a few tens of kilometres) across. (The spatial scale is 5 miles, or 8 kilometres per pixel). The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space...
Cosmic dance of destruction
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is witnessing a grouping of galaxies engaging in a slow dance of destruction that will last for billions of years. The galaxies are so tightly packed together that gravitational forces are beginning to rip stars from them and distort their shapes. Those same...
Hubble provides clear images of Saturn's aurora
This is the first image of Saturn's ultraviolet aurora taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope in October 1997, when Saturn was a distance of 810 million miles (1.3 billion kilometers) from Earth. The new instrument, used as a camera,...
Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared) Image of the Crab Nebula
NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope observed the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6500 light-years from Earth, in the infrared.
XMM-Newton (ultraviolet) Image of the Crab Nebula
ESAs XMM-Newton telescope observed the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6500 light-years from Earth, in the ultraviolet.
Chandra X-ray Observatory (X-ray) Image of the Crab Nebula
NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory observed X-ray emissions from the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6500 light-years from Earth.
Rebel rebel
Most galaxies possess a majestic spiral or elliptical structure. About a quarter of galaxies, though, defy such conventional, rounded aesthetics, instead sporting a messy, indefinable shape. Known as irregular galaxies, this group includes NGC 5408, the galaxy that has been snapped here by the...
Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 3982
Though the universe is chock full of spiral-shaped galaxies, no two look exactly the same. This face-on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its winding arms. The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn...
Full HST WFPC2 image of Trifid Nebula
Three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust make the Trifid Nebula one of the most recognizable and striking star birth regions in the night sky. The dust, silhouetted against glowing gas and illuminated by starlight, cradles the bright stars at the heart of the Trifid. This nebula,...
Hubble - The Ghostbuster
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has caught a glimpse of a colorful cosmic ghost, the glowing remains of a dying star called NGC 6369. The glowing apparition is known to amateur astronomers as the 'Little Ghost Nebula', because it appears as a small, ghostly cloud surrounding the faint,...
Wide-field view of the Lagoon Nebula (ground-based image)
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the area around the Lagoon Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 8. This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
A rose blooming in space
Resembling a delicate rose floating in space, the nebula N11A is seen in a new light in a true-colour image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Fierce radiation from massive stars embedded at the centre of N11A illuminates the surrounding gas with a soft fluorescent glow. N11A lies...
A glimpse into the heart of a dying star
This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the young planetary nebula Henize 3-401. Hubble's extraordinary vision reveals that it is one of the most elongated planetary nebulae found so far. The image shows two very long cylindrical outflows with intricate thread-like...
Nebula N 81
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has peered deep into a neighboring galaxy to reveal details of the formation of new stars. Hubble's target was a newborn star cluster within the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that is a satellite of our own Milky Way. The new images show young, brilliant...
The Cartwheel Galaxy
Located 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, the galaxy looks like a wagon wheel. The galaxy's nucleus is the bright object in the center of the image; the spoke-like structures are wisps of material connecting the nucleus to the outer ring of young stars. The galaxy's...
Protoplanetary disc in the Orion Nebula
Disks around young stars (also known as circumstellar or protoplanetary disks) are thought to be made up of 99% gas and 1% dust. Even that small amount of dust is enough to make the disks opaque and dark at visible wavelengths. The dark disk is seen in this image because they are silhouetted...
Protoplanetary disc in the Orion Nebula
Disks around young stars (also known as circumstellar or protoplanetary disks) are thought to be made up of 99% gas and 1% dust. Even that small amount of dust is enough to make the disks opaque and dark at visible wavelengths. The dark disk is seen in this image because they are silhouetted...
Galaxy cluster MACSJ1206
This image shows the galaxy cluster MACSJ1206.2-0847. The cluster is so far away, it took the light from the cluster more than 4.5 billion years to reach Earth. But the cluster itself is not even the most distant object in this image. Light from even more distant, high-redshift galaxies arrives...
Hubble's 28th birthday picture: The Lagoon Nebula (Uncropped image)
To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colourful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this...
Hubbles view on lensing galaxy
The galaxy SDSS J210415.89-062024.7 is located 2.5 billion light years away. It acted as a lens for a supernova at an even greater distance, creating four distinct images of the explosion an effect created by strong gravitational lensing.
New Hubble image of Kleinmann-Low Nebula
This composite image of the Kleinmann-Low Nebula, part of the Orion Nebula complex, is composed of several pointings of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in optical and near-infrared light. Infrared light allows to peer through the dust of the nebula and to see the stars therein. The revealed...
Hubble peers through the looking glass
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope usually works as a solo artist to capture awe-inspiring images of the distant Universe. For this picture, though, Hubble had a helping hand from the subject of the image, a galaxy cluster called LCDCS-0829, as the huge mass of the galaxies in the cluster...
Hubble image of LRLL 54361 and its surroundings
This infrared image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows an image of protostellar object LRLL 54361 and its rich cosmic neighbourhood, a region called IC 348. The protostar, which is the bright object with fan-like beams of light coming from it, located towards the right of the image,...
NGC 3810: A picture-perfect spiral
The bright galaxy NGC 3810 demonstrates classical spiral structure in this very detailed image from Hubble. The bright central region is thought to be forming many new stars and is outshining the outer areas of the galaxy by some margin. Further out the galaxy displays strikingly rich dust...
NGC 520
NGC 520 is the product of a collision between two disc galaxies that started 300 million years ago. It exemplifies the middle stages of the merging process: the discs of the parent galaxies have merged together, but the nuclei have not yet coalesced. It features an odd-looking tail of stars and...
Hubble extrasolar planet search field in Sagittarius [full ACS view]
This is an image of one-half of the Hubble Space Telescope field of view in the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS). The field contains approximately 150,000 stars, down to 30th magnitude. The stars in the Galactic disk and bulge have a mixture of colours and masses....
The Orion Nebula's biggest stars
Packed into the centre of this region are bright lights of the Trapezium stars, the four heftiest stars in the Orion Nebula. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. The dark speck near the bottom, right...
Wild cosmic ducks
This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (The Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a V shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight. Messier 11 is one of...
Supernova remnant menagerie
A violent and chaotic-looking mass of gas and dust is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby supernova remnant. Denoted N 63A, the object is the remains of a massive star that exploded, spewing its gaseous layers out into an already turbulent region.
NGC 604 in galaxy M33
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image (right) of a vast nebula called NGC 604, which lies in the neighbouring spiral galaxy Messier 33, located 2.7 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum.
Hubble and Chandra composite of ESO 137-001
This image combines NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As well as the electric blue ram pressure stripping streaks seen emanating from ESO 137-001, a giant gas stream can be seen extending towards the bottom of the frame, only visible in...
Area of Centaurus A halo probed by Hubble
This image shows one of the areas of Centaurus A's halo probed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Hubble's unique capabilities allowed astronomers to analyse the faint stars in the halo, which can be seen in this image along with the brighter foreground stars...
New view of the Pillars of Creation infrared
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 infrared light, allowing it to pierce through obscuring dust and gas and unveil a more unfamiliar but just as amazing ...
Spiral galaxy NGC 1376
A bluish-white spiral galaxy hangs delicately in the cold vacuum of space. Known as NGC 1376, this snowflake-shaped beauty was observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Concentrated along the spiral arms of NGC 1376, bright blue knots of glowing gas highlight areas of active star formation....
A three-ringed circus
This Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in February 1994 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, shows the full system of three rings of glowing gas surrounding supernova 1987A. Located in a small galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, the supernova is a massive star that exploded in...
The Cat's Eye Nebula
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen, NGC 6543, nicknamed the 'Cat's Eye Nebula.' Hubble reveals surprisingly intricate structures including concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas and unusual shock-induced knots of gas. Estimated to...
Core of galaxy NGC 4261
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of an 800-light-year-wide spiral-shaped disk of dust fueling a massive black hole in the centreof galaxy, NGC 4261, located 100 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Virgo.
Bat Shadow
This image shows only the feature which was nicknamed the Bat Shadow. It is the shadow of a protoplanetary disc orbiting the star in the centre of the image.
The unusual cluster Terzan
Peering through the thick dust clouds of the galactic bulge an international team of astronomers has revealed the unusual mix of stars in the stellar cluster known as Terzan 5. The new results indicate that Terzan 5 is in fact one of the bulge's primordial building blocks, most likely the relic...
Hubbles view on lensed supernova
The supernova iPTF16geu exploded at a distance corresponding to a time 4.3 billion years ago. It could only be detected because a foreground galaxy lensed the light of the explosion, making it 52 times brighter for observers on Earth. It also caused the supernova to appear in four distinct...
The area around the Andromeda Galaxy (ground-based image)
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the area around the Andromeda galaxy otherwise known as M31.
Magellanic gemstone in the southern sky [NGC 290]
Hubble has captured the most detailed image to date of the open star cluster NGC 290 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,...
Peering into the heart of the Crab Nebula
Multiple observations made over several months with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the spectacle of matter and antimatter propelled to near the speed of light by the Crab pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star the size of Manhattan.
Star clusters near the center of the galaxy
This 4-million-year-old cluster, The Quintuplet Cluster, is more dispersed than the Arches Cluster. It has stars on the verge of blowing up as supernovae. It is the home of the brightest star seen in the Milky Way, called the Pistol star.
Planetary nebula NGC 6818
This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2image of NGC 6818 shows two distinct layers of gas (with dust): a spherical outer region and a brighter, vase-shaped interior 'bubble.' Astronomers believe that a fast wind - material propelled by radiation from the hot central star - is creating the inner...
Edge-on protoplanetary disc in the Orion Nebula
Resembling an interstellar Frisbee, this is a disk of dust seen edge-on around a newborn star in the Orion nebula, located 1, 500 light-years away. Because the disk is edge-on, the star is largely hidden inside, in this striking Hubble Space Telescope picture. The disk may be an embryonic...
Protoplanetary disc in the Orion Nebula
Disks around young stars (also known as circumstellar or protoplanetary disks) are thought to be made up of 99% gas and 1% dust. Even that small amount of dust is enough to make the disks opaque and dark at visible wavelengths. The dark disk is seen in this image because they are silhouetted...
Section of Hubble GOODS North field
This image is from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope survey GOODS North (Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey). The image is aglow with galaxies but to the bottom right, highlighted in the annotated image, is a galaxy of particular interest. A compact galactic core dubbed GOODS-N-774 and...
An odd planetary nebula in Hercules
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a striking high resolution image of the curious planetary nebula NGC 6210. Located about 6500 light-years away, in the constellation of Hercules, NGC 6210 was discovered in 1825 by the German astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve. Although in a...
A snowstorm of distant galaxies
At first glance, the scatter of pale dots on this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image looks like a snowstorm in the night sky. But almost every one of these delicate snowflakes is a distant galaxy in the cluster MACS J0717.5+3745 and each is home to billions of stars. This apparently placid...
Spiral galaxy NGC 4911 in the Coma cluster
A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy, known as NGC 4911, contains rich lanes of dust and gas near its...
Star clusters near the center of the galaxy
The Arches cluster is so dense that over 100,000 of its stars would fill a spherical region in space whose radius is the distance between the Sun and its nearest neighbor, the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away. At least 150 of its stars are among the brightest ever seen in the Galaxy.
The Cat's Eye Nebula
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen, NGC 6543, nicknamed the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Hubble reveals surprisingly intricate structures including concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas and unusual shock-induced knots of gas....
Mars
This is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of Mars.
Very Large Array (radio) Image of the Crab Nebula
TheKarl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observed the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6500 light-years from Earth, at radio wavelengths.
Central regions of 47 Tucanae
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the central region of a globular cluster known as NGC 104 or, more commonly, 47 Tucanae, since it is part of the constellation of Tucana (The Toucan) in the southern sky.
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