Sample galaxy 33160
This galaxy has so much dust surrounding it that the brilliant light from its quasar cannot be seen in these Hubble Space Telescope images. Quasars are the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured material, and in the process, heating some of the matter to...
Sample galaxy 29263
A distant, obscured quasar. Quasars are the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured material.
HDF-S area in the sky
After the great success of the origninal Hubble Deep Field, later called Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N), an identical project for the southern hemisphere, the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S), was done over ten days in September 1998. With similar exposure times as in the HDF-N the HDF-S was...
A spiral home to exploding stars
In this new Hubble image, we can see an almost face-on view of the galaxy NGC 1084. At first glance, this galaxy is pretty unoriginal. Like the majority of galaxies that we observe it is a spiral galaxy, and, as with about half of all spirals, it has no bar running through its loosely wound...
Globular cluster 47 Tucanae
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows 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. After Omega Centauri it is the brightest globular cluster in the night sky, hosting tens of...
A Grand Design of Imperfections
With its swirling arms and luminous core, NGC 5364 is unmistakably a spiral galaxy, lying in the constellation Virgo. But it’s not just any spiral galaxy imaged by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a...
Triple Stellar Treat
This observation captures the variable star HP Tau, which lies more than 550 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. This image was created using data from the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. HP Tau is a T...
Follow the LEDA
This luminescent image features multiple galaxies, perhaps most noticeably LEDA 58109, the lone galaxy in the upper right. LEDA 58109 is flanked by two further galactic objects to its lower left — an active galactic nucleus (AGN) called SDSS J162558.14+435746.4 that partially obscures the...
What’s in a name?
This Hubble Picture of the Week includes the pithily-named galaxy SDSS J103512.07+461412.2, visible in the centre of this image as a dispersed sweep of dust and stars with a denser, brighter core. SDSS J103512.07+461412.2 is located 23 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa...
Stellar cradle
The protostellar object OH 339.88-1.26, which lies 8 900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ara, lurks in this dust-filled image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Winding lanes of dark dust thread through this image, which is also studded with bright stars crowned with...
Glittering globular cluster Terzan 12
The glittering globular cluster Terzan 12 — a vast, tightly bound collection of stars — fills the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This star-studded stellar census comes from a string of observations that aim to systematically explore globular clusters located...
Aftermath of a cosmic explosion
The somewhat amorphous spiral galaxy UGC 2890 appears side-on in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with bright foreground stars studding the image. This galaxy lies around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. In 2009 astronomers spotted a...
Visitor to a Galaxy
A host of astronomical objects throng this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Background galaxies ranging from stately spirals to fuzzy ellipticals are strewn across the image, and bright foreground stars much closer to home are also present, surrounded by diffraction spikes. In...
Terzan 1, Take 2
Terzan 1 is a globular cluster that lies about 22,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. It is one of 11 globular clusters that were discovered by the Turkish-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan between 1966 and 1971 when he was working in France, based mostly at Lyon...
Starstruck in Terzan 4
A glittering multitude of stars in the globular cluster Terzan 4 fill this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Globular clusters are collections of stars bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction, and can contain millions of individual stars. As this image shows, the...
Galactic Get-Together
A merging galaxy pair cavort in this image captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This pair of galaxies, known to astronomers as II ZW 96, is roughly 500 million light-years from Earth and lies in the constellation Delphinus, close to the celestial equator. As well as the wild...
Cosmic Treasure Chest
This star-studded image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9 in the constellation Sagittarius, towards the centre of the Milky Way. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this glittering scene using its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Globular clusters are stable,...
Hubble Investigates an Enigmatic Globular Cluster
Like Sherlock Holmes’s magnifying glass writ large, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to peer into an astronomical mystery in search of clues. The enigma in question concerns the globular cluster Ruprecht 106, which is pictured in this image. While the constituent stars of...
Hubble Spies a Tenuous Diffuse Galaxy
The ultra-diffuse galaxy GAMA 526784 appears as a tenuous patch of light in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This wispy object resides in the constellation Hydra, roughly four billion light-years from Earth. Ultra-diffuse galaxies such as GAMA 526784 have a number of...
A tiny galaxy with a big heart
Nestled within this field of bright foreground stars lies ESO 495-21, a tiny galaxy with a big heart. ESO 495-21 is just 3000 light-years across, a fraction of the size of the Milky Way, but that is not stopping the galaxy from furiously forming huge numbers of stars. There are also indicators...
Wide-Field View of the Hickson Compact Group 40
This image shows a wide-field view centred on the Hickson Compact Group 40.
Revisiting a Celestial Fireworks Display
Shreds of the luridly coloured supernova remnant DEM L 190 seem to billow across the screen in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The delicate sheets and intricate filaments are debris from the cataclysmic death of a massive star that once lived in the Large Magellanic Cloud,...
An Enigmatic Astronomical Explosion
A bright young star is surrounded by a shroud of thick gas and dust in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 inspected a young stellar object, over 9000 light years away in the constellation Taurus, to help astronomers understand the earliest stages...
Spiral Snapshot
The spiral galaxy M91 fills the frame of this Wide Field Camera 3 observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. M91 lies approximately 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices and — as is evident in this image — is a barred spiral galaxy. While M91’s...
A Galactic Powerhouse
This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3254, observed using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). WFC3 has the capacity to observe ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light, and this image is a composite of observations taken in the visible and infrared. In this image, NGC 3254 looks like a...
Hubble Spies a Serpentine Spiral Galaxy
The lazily winding spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 5921 snake across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy lies approximately 80 million light-years from Earth, and much like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, contains a prominent bar. Roughly half of all spiral galaxies...
Hubble Spies a Stunning Spiral
This cosmic portrait — captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 — shows a stunning view of the spiral galaxy NGC 4571, which lies approximately 60 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation — whose name translates as...
Sail of Stars
The spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 3318 are lazily draped across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This spiral galaxy lies in the constellation Vela and is roughly 115 million light-years away from Earth. Vela was originally part of a far larger constellation, known as Argo...
Webb Inspects NGC 346 (NIRCam Image)
This image features NGC 346, one of the most dynamic star-forming regions in nearby galaxies, as seen by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. NCG 346 is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a dwarf galaxy close to our Milky Way. [Image Description: A star forming region sweeps...
Galactic Tranquility
The lazily winding spiral arms of the spectacular galaxy NGC 976 fill the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This spiral galaxy lies around 150 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Aries. Despite its tranquil appearance, NGC 976 has played host...
More than Meets the Eye
Meet NGC 5728, a spiral galaxy around 130 million light-years from Earth. This image was captured using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which is extremely sensitive to visible and infrared light. Therefore, this image beautifully captures the regions of NGC 5728 that are emitting visible...
Everything, in one place, all at once
This luminous Picture of the Week shows Z 229-15 — imaged here in beautiful detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — a celestial object that lies about 390 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. Z 229-15 is one of those interesting celestial objects that, should you...
Hubble's View of Beta Pictoris in 2012
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to take the most detailed picture to date of a large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disc encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. Beta Pictoris remains the only directly imaged debris disc that has a giant planet (discovered in...
An energetic outburst from an infant star streaks across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This stellar tantrum — produced by an extremely young star in the earliest phase of formation — consists of an incandescent jet of gas travelling at supersonic speeds. As the jet...
Cluster in the Cloud
This Picture of the Week shows an open cluster known as NGC 2164, which was first discovered in 1826 by a Scottish astronomer named James Dunlop. NGC 2164 is located within one of the Milky Way galaxy's closest neighbours — the satellite galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large...
Star-Studded Skyfield
This star-studded image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6638 in the constellation Sagittarius. The star-strewn observation highlights the density of stars at the heart of globular clusters, which are stable, tightly bound clusters of tens of...
Astronomy in Action
This striking image features a relatively rare celestial phenomenon known as a Herbig–Haro object. This particular Herbig–Haro object is named HH111, and was imaged by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). These spectacular objects are formed under very specific circumstances. Newly formed stars...
NGC 6822
The galaxy NGC 6822 is located 1.6 million light-years from Earth. Euclid was able to capture this view of the entire galaxy and its surroundings in high resolution in about one hour, which isn’t possible with ground-based telescopes or targeted telescopes (such as NASA’s Webb) that have narrower...
Euclid’s view of the Perseus cluster of galaxies
This incredible snapshot from Euclid shows 1000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster, and more than 100,000 additional galaxies further away in the background, each containing up to hundreds of billions of stars.
Euclid’s view of globular cluster NGC 6397
This sparkly image shows Euclid’s view on a globular cluster called NGC 6397. Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars held together by gravity.
Euclid's View of Spiral Galaxy IC 342
The spiral galaxy IC 342, located about 11 million light-years from Earth, lies behind the crowded plane of the Milky Way: Dust, gas, and stars obscure it from our view. Euclid used its near-infrared instrument to peer through the dust and study it.
Euclid’s view of the Perseus cluster of galaxies
This incredible snapshot from Euclid shows 1000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster, and more than 100,000 additional galaxies further away in the background, each containing up to hundreds of billions of stars.
Euclid’s view of globular cluster NGC 6397
This sparkly image shows Euclid’s view on a globular cluster called NGC 6397. Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars held together by gravity.
Euclid’s view of the Horsehead Nebula
Euclid shows us a spectacularly panoramic and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion
NGC 6822
The galaxy NGC 6822 is located 1.6 million light-years from Earth. Euclid was able to capture this view of the entire galaxy and its surroundings in high resolution in about one hour, which isn’t possible with ground-based telescopes or targeted telescopes (such as NASA’s Webb) that have narrower...
Euclid's View of Spiral Galaxy IC 342
The spiral galaxy IC 342, located about 11 million light-years from Earth, lies behind the crowded plane of the Milky Way: Dust, gas, and stars obscure it from our view. Euclid used its near-infrared instrument to peer through the dust and study it.
MACS 0416 (Hubble and Webb Compared)
his side-by-side comparison of galaxy cluster MACS0416 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light (right) reveals different details. Both images feature hundreds of galaxies, however the Webb image shows galaxies that are...
MACS 0416 (Hubble ACS and WFC3 + Webb NIRCam Image)
This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible-light data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To make the image, in general the shortest wavelengths of light were color-coded blue, the longest...
Sagittarius C (NIRCam Image)
The full view of the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals a 50 light-years-wide portion of the Milky Way’s dense center. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. A...
Trifid Nebula
mage of the central region of the Trifid Nebula (M20 in the Messier Catalogue) taken by the Gemini North 8-meter Telescope on Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii, June 5, 2002. Located in the constellation of Sagittarius, the beautiful nebula is a much-photographed, dynamic cloud of gas and...
NGC 3923
The onion-like layers of shell galaxy NGC 3923 are beautifully showcased in this image taken with the DOE-built Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Located in the constellation Hydra...
PLCK G287.0+32.9 Gravitational Lensing
An extremely large gravitational lens around galaxy cluster PLCK G287.0+32.9
Face-on spiral galaxy LEDA 744285
The face-on spiral galaxy LEDA 744285
Face-on spiral galaxy ESO 440-11
The face-on spiral galaxy ESO 440-11
IRS-8 Bow-Shock
The object, known by the unglamorous name of IRS8, was only an ill-defined smudge until Gemini came along. Now, the Gemini telescope's advanced optics show that IRS8 appears to be a star that is plowing through a poorly understood gas and dust cloud near the galactic center. Moving relative to...
The Andromeda Galaxy
This detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy was taken at the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak with the NOAO Mosaic CCD camera. Located in the constellation of Andromeda, the Princess, the Andromeda Galaxy is a large spiral galaxy very similar to our own Galaxy, the...
NGC 520
A galactic collision of two galaxies which began more than 300 million years ago, NGC 520 is actually made up of two disk galaxies which will eventually merge together to form one larger, more massive system. NGC 520 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 and is one of the largest and...
Copeland Septet group of galaxies
A group of galaxies nicknamed the Copeland Septet, in the constellation of Leo. Astronomers using images from Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory have created the largest ever map of the sky, comprising over a billion galaxies. The final data release from...
Record-breaking Gamma-Ray Burst Caught With Gemini (no annotations)
Thanks to a fast reaction by observers and staff, near-simultaneous observations were made of GRB221009A from Gemini South in Chile. The image is a combination of 4 exposures in I, J,H, K with two instruments taken in the morning of Friday 14 October 2022.
Galaxy cluster MACS0416 (Hubble and Webb composite image)
This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with visible-light data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. To make the image, in general the shortest wavelengths of light were colour-coded...
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