Red cocoon harbours young stars
On Earth, cocoons are associated with new life. There are “cocoons” in space too, but, rather than protecting pupae as they transform into moths, they are the birthplaces of new stars. The red cloud seen in this image, taken with the EFOSC2 instrument on ESO’s New Technology Telescope, is a...
The VLT goes lion hunting
The Very Large Telescope has captured another member of the Leo I group of galaxies, in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). The galaxy Messier 95 stands boldly face-on, offering an ideal view of its spiral structure. The spiral arms form an almost perfect circle around the galactic centre...
Barred spiral galaxy swirls in the night sky
This image shows the swirling shape of galaxy NGC 2217, in the constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog). In the central region of the galaxy is a distinctive bar of stars within an oval ring. Further out, a set of tightly wound spiral arms almost form a circular ring around the galaxy. NGC...
A galaxy full of surprises — NGC 3621 is bulgeless but has three central black holes
This image, from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a truly remarkable galaxy known as NGC 3621. To begin with, it is a pure-disc galaxy. Like other spirals, it has a flat disc permeated by dark lanes of material and with prominent spiral arms where young stars are forming in clusters (the...
Portrait of an imperfect but beautiful spiral
Not all spiral galaxies have to be picture-perfect to be striking. Messier 96, also known as NGC 3368, is a case in point: its core is displaced from the centre, its gas and dust are distributed asymmetrically and its spiral arms are ill-defined. But this portrait, taken with the FORS1...
VLT observes the Antennae Galaxies
A new Very Large Telescope (VLT) image of the Antennae Galaxies gives us what may be the second-best visible-light view yet of this striking pair of colliding galaxies with dramatically distorted shapes. This amazing object takes its name from the long antenna-like "arms" extending far out...
Smoke signals in space
The hazy and aptly named Fine Ring Nebula, shown here, is an unusual planetary nebula. Planetary nebulae form when some dying stars, having expanded into a red giant phase, expel a shell of gas as they evolve into white dwarfs. Most planetary nebulae are either spherical or elliptical in shape,...
Hiding in plain sight — the elusive Carina dwarf galaxy
It’s one of the closest galaxies to Earth, but the Carina Dwarf Galaxy is so dim and diffuse that astronomers only discovered it in the 1970s. A companion galaxy of the Milky Way, this ball of stars shares features with both globular star clusters and much larger galaxies. Astronomers believe...
A galactic embrace
Two galaxies, about 50 million light-years away, are locked in a galactic embrace — literally. The Seyfert galaxy NGC 1097, in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is seen in this image taken with the VIMOS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). A comparatively tiny elliptical...
A galactic petri dish
This rich scattering of galaxies was captured using the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The thousands of galaxies contained in this small area of sky give a glimpse into the Universe’s distant past, whilst also acting as a...
Hidden treasure on our doorstep
The MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile is a powerful instrument that can capture distant celestial objects, but it has been used here to image a heavenly body that is much closer to home: the Moon. The data used for this image were selected by Andy Strappazzon from Belgium, who...
HAWK-I instrument spies a super galaxy
The HAWK-I instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile has been used to great effect in producing this distinctive image of the distant galaxy NGC 157. Boasting a central sweep of stars resembling a giant "S", reminiscent of the comic book hero Superman’s...
An ancient cluster of stars against a stunning background
Among the myriad of stars in this image shines NGC 2257, a collection of cosmic gems bound tightly by gravity. Many billions of years old, but still sparkling brightly, it is an eye-catching astronomical object. NGC 2257 is a globular cluster, the name given to the roughly spherical...
Crash of the titans
NGC 520 — also known as Arp 157 — looks like a galaxy in the midst of exploding. In reality, it’s the exact opposite. Two enormous spiral galaxies are crashing into each other, melding and forming a new conglomerate. This happens slowly, over millions of years — the whole process started some...
The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy
Spiralling around, 61 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax (the Furnace), NGC 1365 is enormous. At 200000 light-years across, it is one of the largest galaxies known to astronomers. This, plus the sharply defined bar of old stars across its structure is why it is also known as...
Looking into the Milky Way’s heart — ISAAC observes the Galactic Centre
The centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is again in the sights of ESO telescopes. This time it’s the turn of ISAAC, the VLT’s near- and mid-infrared spectrometer and camera. From Chile’s Atacama Desert, site of the ESO observatories, the Milky Way offers magnificent views, particularly in...
ESO’s Very Large Telescope peers into a distant nebula*
Astronomers using data from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, have made an impressive composite of the nebula Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula. The painting-like image shows vast clouds of gas and dust illuminated by the intense...
Arp 271 — galaxies drawn together*
NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are two spiral galaxies of similar sizes engaged in a dramatic dance. It is not certain that this interaction will end in a collision and ultimately a merging of the two galaxies, although the galaxies have already been affected. Together known as Arp 271, this dance will...
The Blinking Galaxy
NGC 6118, a grand-design spiral galaxy, shines bright in this image, displaying its central bar and tight spiral arms from its home in the constellation of Serpens (The Snake). The galaxy is sometimes known to amateur astronomers as the “Blinking Galaxy” because this relatively faint, fuzzy...
Frenzied star birth in Haro 11
Haro 11 appears to shine gently amid clouds of gas and dust, but this placid facade belies the monumental rate of star formation occurring in this “starburst” galaxy. By combining data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have created a new image...
The oddest member of the Leo Triplet
NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy and a member of a small, but conspicuous group of galaxies located about 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation of Leo (the Lion). The other distinguished members of this family, known collectively as the Leo Triplet, are two well-known prominent...
Arp 22 stretches out
NGC 4027, also known as Arp 22, stretches its single extended spiral arm in this face-on image. Located about 75 million light-years away in the constellation of Corvus (the Crow), this barred spiral galaxy is identified as a peculiar galaxy by this extended arm, thought to be the result of a...
The glow of the Lagoon Nebula
Gas and dust condense, beginning the process of creating new stars in this image of Messier 8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Located four to five thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the nebula is a giant interstellar cloud, one hundred light-years...
Starbursting sculptor galaxy
NGC 253, also known as the Sculptor Galaxy, is the brightest of the Sculptor Group of galaxies, found in the constellation of the same name, and lying approximately 13 million light-years from Earth. The Sculptor Galaxy is known as a starburst galaxy for its current high rate of star formation,...
The sky around the star V960 Mon
This image shows the sky around the location of the star V960 Mon. This picture was created from images in the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
Stellar titans of Pismis 24
Home to some of the largest stars ever discovered, the open stellar cluster Pismis 24 blazes from the core of NGC 6357, a nebula in the constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion). Several stars in the clusters weigh in at over 100 times the mass of the Sun, making them real monster stars. The...
Dying star puffs a cosmic dragon
NGC 5189 is a planetary nebula with an oriental twist. Similar in appearance to a Chinese dragon, these red and green cosmic fireworks are the last swansong of a dying star. At the end of its life, a star with a mass less than eight times that of the Sun will blow its outer layers away, giving...
Darth Vader’s galaxy, NGC 936
Glowing in the cosmos at a distance of about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy NGC 936 bears a striking resemblance to the Twin Ion Engine (TIE) starfighters used by the evil Dark Lord Darth Vader and his crew in the epic motion picture Star Wars. The galaxy’s shiny bulge and a bar-like...
A dwarf in the Fornax cluster
In this dazzling image, the galaxy NGC 1427A is seen as it travels through the Fornax cluster of galaxies, to which it belongs. NGC 1427A is an example of a dwarf irregular galaxy, a type of galaxy that is significantly less bright than regular galaxies and characterised by a peculiar shape. In...
The high-mass protostars IRS 9A-C
Zoom-in view to the Starburst Region NGC 3603 IRS 9. The brightest members of the spares association of protostars are IRS 9A-C. The intrinsic brightness of these nascent stars is impressive: 100,000, 1000 and 1000 times that of the Sun for IRS 9A, IRS 9B and IRS 9C, respectively. Their...
The hidden engine of NGC 4945
Portrayed in this image is the spiral galaxy NGC 4945, a close neighbour of the Milky Way. Belonging to the Centaurus A group of galaxies, it is located at a distance of almost 13 million light-years. Showing a remarkable resemblance to our own galaxy, NGC 4945 also hides a supermassive black...
NTT captures comet Halley
Image of comet Halley taken by the New Technology Telescope (NTT), located at La Silla observatory in Chile.
The innermost region of the active galaxy NGC 1068
New insight into the central region of the active galaxy NGC 1068, at increasing magnification. Image a (left) is a colour composite of NGC 1068, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); showing stellar light in blue, oxygen ionized by the active nucleus in yellow, and inonized hydrogen...
NGC 2547
NGC 2547 is a southern open cluster in Vela, discovered by Abbe Lacaille in 1751-1752 from South Africa.
NGC 2477
NGC 2477 (also known as Caldwell 71) is an open cluster in the constellation Puppis. It contains about 300 stars, and was discovered by Abbe Lacaille in 1751. The cluster's age has been estimated at about 700 million years. NGC 2477 is a stunning cluster, almost as extensive in the sky as the...
The czech president’s galaxy
This new image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3244 was taken with the help of the President of Czechia, Václav Klaus, during his visit to ESO’s Paranal Observatory [1], on the night of 6 April 2011. Czechia joined ESO in 2007, and this was the first visit of the country’s President to an ESO site....
ALMA view of the 9io9 galaxy
This image shows the orientation of the magnetic field in the distant 9io9 galaxy, seen here when the Universe was only 20% of its current age — the furthest ever detection of a galaxy’s magnetic field. The observations were done with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in...
Intricate spiral arms around V960 Mon captured with SPHERE
This image of the young star V960 Mon and its surrounding material was taken with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT. The material orbiting the young star is assembling together in a series of intricate spiral arms that extend to distances...
An infrared view of the 9io9 galaxy
This infrared image shows the distant galaxy 9io9, seen here as a reddish arc curved around a bright nearby galaxy. This nearby galaxy acts as a gravitational lens: its mass curves spacetime around it, bending lightrays coming from 9io9 in the background, hence its distorted shape. This colour...
A planet and its Trojan orbiting a star in the PDS 70 system
This image, taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, shows the young planetary system PDS 70, located nearly 400 light-years away from Earth. The system features a star at its centre, around which the planet PDS 70b is orbiting. On the same...
An infrared view of the Lupus 3 region
This image shows the region Lupus 3. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying this image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The image was produced with data collected...
Large dusty clumps orbiting V960 Mon captured by ALMA
This image of the young star V960 Mon and surrounding dusty material was obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. Large dusty clumps with masses similar to that of planets are visible here as blue blobs. These clumps could contract and...
An infrared view of the Lupus 2 region
This image shows the region Lupus 2. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying this image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The image was produced with data collected...
An infrared view of the region around the Coronet star cluster
This image shows the regions around the Coronet star cluster in the Corona Australis constellation. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying the image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by...
An infrared view of the HH 909 A object in Chamaeleon
This image shows the HH 909 A object in the Chamaeleon constellation. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying this image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The image...
An infrared view of the IRAS 11051-7706 object in Chamaeleon
This image shows the IRAS 11051-7706 object in the Chamaeleon constellation. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying the image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The...
The Coronet region in visible light
This image, taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the nearby star-forming region around the Coronet star cluster, in the Corona Australis constellation.
The Sh2-54 nebula in the infrared with VISTA
This image of the spectacular Sh2-54 nebula was taken in infrared light using ESO’s VISTA telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile. The clouds of dust and gas that are normally obvious in visible light are less evident here, and in this light we can see the light of the stars behind the...
ESO’s 60th anniversary image: the Cone Nebula as seen by the VLT
The Cone Nebula is part of a star-forming region of space, NGC 2264, about 2500 light-years away. Its pillar-like appearance is a perfect example of the shapes that can develop in giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars. This dramatic new view of the nebula was...
An infrared view of the L1688 region in Ophiuchus
This image shows the L1688 region in the Ophiuchus constellation. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying this image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The image was...
The Vela supernova remnant imaged by the VLT Survey Telescope
This image shows a spectacular view of the orange and pink clouds that make up what remains after the explosive death of a massive star — the Vela supernova remnant. This detailed image consists of 554 million pixels, and is a combined mosaic image of observations taken with the...
The Lupus 3 region in visible light
A dark cloud of cosmic dust snakes across this spectacular image, illuminated by the brilliant light of new stars. This dense cloud is a star-forming region called Lupus 3, where dazzlingly hot stars are born from collapsing masses of gas and dust. This image was created from images taken using...
The Sh2-54 nebula in visible light with the VST
A visible-light image of the Sh2-54 nebula, captured by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. At these wavelengths the structure of the nebula is clear and the clouds of dust and gas block the light of stars within and behind it.
Wide-field view of the Cone Nebula region of the sky
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) shows the region of the sky around the Cone Nebula. The nebulous area at the centre of the image is NGC 2264, an area of the sky that includes the Christmas Tree star cluster and the Cone Nebula below it (at the very centre of the frame).
The L1688 region in visible light
This image shows the environment around the L1688 star-forming region in visible light. This area, located in the Ophiuchus constellation, features prominent dark lanes and glowing nebulae. This image was taken from ESO’s Paranal Observatory with a 10-cm Takahashi FSQ106Ed f/3.6 telescope and a...
Radio image of the 30 Doradus nebula with data from ALMA
This image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, in radio wavelengths, as observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The bright red-yellow streaks reveal regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form...
NGC 7727’s spectacular galactic dance as seen by the VLT
The galaxy NGC 7727 was born from the merger of two galaxies that started around a billion years ago. The cosmic dance of the two galaxies has resulted in the spectacular wispy shape of NGC 7727. At the heart of the galaxy, two supermassive black holes are spiralling closer to each other,...
Infrared image of 30 Doradus
This infrared image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, highlighting its bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The image is a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and...
Composite infrared and radio image of 30 Doradus
This composite image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula. The background image, taken in the infrared, is itself a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for...
First image of our black hole
This is the first image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It’s the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array which linked together eight existing radio observatories across...
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