A Galaxy in Different Lights
This side-by-side comparison shows the nearby galaxy Messier 81, which is similar to our own Milky Way, in both visible (left) and ultraviolet light (right). While visible-light images of galaxies reveal the distribution of stars, ultraviolet-light images highlight the most active, young stars....
Galaxies aren't the only objects filling up the view of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer. A group of six streaking objects -- the identities of which remain unknown -- can be seen here flying across the telescope's sight in this sped-up movie.
Galaxies aren't the only objects filling up the view of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer. This probable satellite appears during the last 5 minutes of a 13.5-minute observation.
Galactic Halos of Hydrogen
This image shows two companion galaxies, NGC 4625 (top) and NGC 4618 (bottom), and their surrounding cocoons of cool hydrogen gas (purple).
Hello to Arms
This image highlights the hidden spiral arms (blue) that were discovered around the nearby galaxy NGC 4625 by the ultraviolet eyes of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
Dwarf Star Erupts in Giant Flare
This movie taken by NASA'S Galaxy Evolution Explorer show one of the largest flares, or star eruptions, ever recorded at ultraviolet wavelengths. The star, called GJ 3685A, just happened to be in the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's field of view while the telescope was busy observing galaxies.
NGC 5128 (Centaurus-A)
Ultraviolet image of NGC 5128 (Centaurus-A). This unusual galaxy is believed to be the result of a collision of two normal galaxies. The blue regions toward the top are thought to be areas of star formation induced by powerful jets originating from a central black hole.
IC 1613
Ultraviolet image (left) and visual image (right) of the irregular dwarf galaxy IC 1613. Low surface brightness galaxies, such as IC 1613, are more easily detected in the ultraviolet because of the low background levels compared to visual wavelengths.
NGC 1291
Ultraviolet image (left) and visual image (right) of the barred ring galaxy NGC 1291. The visual image is dominated by the inner disk and bar. The ultraviolet image is dominated by the low surface brightness outer arms.
NGC 3351 (M95)
Ultraviolet image (left) and visual image (right) of the face on barred and ringed spiral galaxy NGC 3351 (M95).
NGC 1851
Ultraviolet image of the globular cluster NGC 1851 in the southern constellation Columba.
Virgo Galaxy Cluster
Ultraviolet image of a small area of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
NGC 3190 Field
Ultraviolet image of a diverse group of galaxy types. NGC 3190 is a dusty edge on spiral galaxy. NGC 3187 is highly distorted. The two are separated by only 35 kilo-parsecs (about half the diameter of our own Milky Way galaxy). A ring, elliptical, and other irregular galaxies are also present.
NGC 3344
Ultraviolet image of the large face on spiral galaxy NGC 3344. The inner spiral arms are wrapped so tightly that they are difficult to distinguish.
Stephan's Quintet and NGC 7331
Ultraviolet image of the interacting group of galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet (NGC7317, NGC7318A, NGC7318B, NGC7319, NGC7320, lower left). Of the five galaxies in this tightly packed group, NGC7320 (the large spiral in the group) is probably a foreground galaxy and not associated with the...
M83
Ultraviolet image of the nearby "Southern Pinwheel" galaxy M83 (NGC 5236). GALEX ultraviolet images suggest the M83 has unusual pockets of star formation separated by large distances from the spiral arms in the main disk of the galaxy.
Helix Nebula
Ultraviolet image of the planetary nebula NGC 7293 also known as the Helix Nebula.
NGC 1365
Ultraviolet image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365, which is a member of the Fornax Cluster of Galaxies.
NGC 1097
Ultraviolet image of the interacting pair NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy, and the small elliptical companion galaxy NGC 1097A.
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer specializes in surveying galaxies in ultraviolet light. Its telescope, 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) in diameter, has a field of view that is much wider than most ground-based and space-based telescopes.
Dark Energy Camera Captures Bright, Young Stars Blazing Inside Glowing Nebula
This image, taken by astronomers using the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, captures the star-forming nebula NGC 6357, which is located 8000 light-years away in...
A legendary nebula
The nebula that keeps on giving, Messier 1 (Crab Nebula) is captured here by the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope from Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The storied history of this supernova remnant in modern astronomy begins when it was recorded in 1731 by...
A cosmic couple
Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. Both objects, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are found in the constellation of Sagitta and lie 15 000 light-years away. The star Hen...
Hubble spies a meandering spiral (wide field)
This image shows a wider view of the dim, distant galaxies around the irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486. The tenuous disc of the galaxy is threaded through with pink wisps of star formation, which stand out from the diffuse glow of the galaxy’s bright core. While this particular galaxy has...
Measuring Infrared Brightness
This graphic illuminates the process by which astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have for the first time detected the light from a super Earth planet.
Cosmic Contortions
A massive galaxy cluster in the constellation Cetus dominates the centre of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This image is populated with a serene collection of elliptical and spiral galaxies, but galaxies surrounding the central cluster — which is named SPT-CL J0019-2026 —...
Dark Energy Survey deep field image
Ten areas in the sky were selected as “deep fields” that the Dark Energy Camera imaged several times during the survey, providing a glimpse of distant galaxies and helping determine their 3D distribution in the cosmos. The image is teeming with galaxies — in fact, nearly every single object in...
Planetary nebula Abell 39
Abell 39, the 39th entry in a catalog of large nebulae discovered by George Abell in 1966, is a beautiful example of a planetary nebula. It was chosen for study by George Jacoby (WIYN Observatory), Gary Ferland (University of Kentucky), and Kirk Korista (Western Michigan University) because of...
NGC 1365 with JWST
In the MIRI observations of NGC 1365, clumps of dust and gas in the interstellar medium have absorbed the light from forming stars and emitted it back out in the infrared, lighting up an intricate network of cavernous bubbles and filamentary shells influenced by young stars releasing energy...
Spiral Galaxy NGC 4402
This three-color composite image of spiral galaxy NGC 4402 shows several key lines of evidence for the galaxy being stripped bare of its star-forming material by its violent ongoing encounter with the hot gas in the center of the Virgo galaxy cluster, as NGC4402 falls into it. First, the...
Rosette HH1
This is a zoomed in image of the area containing the Young Stellar Object Rosette HH1. The area is indicated by the box in Image 2 above.
SN2002ic
This image of Supernova 2002ic was taken at the Swope 1-meter telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile on January 7, 2003. The supernova is the bright point of light in the center, at the intersection of two background galaxies. The host galaxy of the supernova is extremely faint and is...
Rich Young Cluster Cep OB 3b
Cep OB 3b is rich young cluster located in the northern constellation of Cepheus. This image was created by combining individual images observed through four different filters on the 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak: blue, visual (cyan), near infrared (orange) and an emission line of hydrogen...
NGC 6334 - A Mini Starburst Region?
In this false-color image of NGC 6334, red represents the Herschel 70 micron IR image, green represents the IRAC 8 micron image and blue represents the NEWFIRM 1 micron J band. The region is about 70 light years wide.
N159W GeMS/GSAOI Image
Gemini South GeMS/GSAOI near-infrared image of the N159W field in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Color composite image by Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage. See Image Release for details Technical Details: The image spans 1.5 arcminutes across, resolves stars to about 0.09 arcseconds,...
NGC 2346
This near-infrared image obtained with GeMS adaptive optics system reveals the fine detail inside NGC 2346, a planetary nebula informaly also known as the 'Butterfly Nebula.' At the center of the nebula is a binary star system.
RCW 41
This near-infrared image obtained with GeMS adaptive optics system resolves the stars inside RCW 41, a star-forming region harboring a massive star cluster surrounded by dust and gas. It lies in the Vela Molecular Ridge, a vast star-forming complex in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers Spot Evidence for Colliding Planet Embryos in Famous Star Cluster
Color composite image of the Pleiades star cluster and surrounding region produced by Inseok Song of the Spitzer Science Center. The image was created by combining B, R and I band images from individual second generation Digital Sky Survey images into blue, green and red image layers,...
Recently Discovered Dwarf Galaxy Donatiello II
The smudge in the center of this image from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), built by the US Department of Energy, is the elusive dwarf galaxy Donatiello II. It is one of six dwarf galaxies discovered by Italian amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello. Three of them — Donatiello II, III and...
Galactic Crash Course
A spectacular trio of merging galaxies in the constellation Boötes takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These three galaxies are set on a collision course and will eventually merge into a single larger galaxy, distorting one another’s spiral structure...
Exploring a Turbulent Tarantula
A snapshot of the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is the most recent Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Tarantula Nebula is a large star-forming region of ionised hydrogen gas that lies 161 000 light years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and...
LAWD 37
Hubble has used microlensing to measure the mass of a white dwarf star. The dwarf, called LAWD 37, is a burned-out star in the centre of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. Though its nuclear fusion furnace has shut down, trapped heat is sizzling on the surface at roughly 100 000...
Tempestuous Young Stars in Orion
The bright variable star V 372 Orionis takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which has also captured a smaller companion star in the upper left of this image. Both stars lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1450 light years...
Calling on a Galactic Neighbour
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy LEDA 48062 in the constellation Canes Venatici. LEDA 48062 is the faint, sparse, amorphous galaxy on the right side of this image, and it is accompanied by a more sharply defined neighbour on the left, the large, disc-like...
Stargazing in NGC 6355
The scattered stars of the globular cluster NGC 6355 are strewn across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This globular cluster lies less than 50,000 light-years from Earth in the Ophiuchus constellation. NGC 6355 is a galactic globular cluster that resides in our Milky Way...
Wider view of irregular dwarf galaxy IC 1613 from the Dark Energy Survey
The irregular dwarf galaxy IC 1613 contains some 100 million stars and is a member of our Local Group of galaxies, which also includes our Milky Way, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, and the Magellanic Clouds. This image is an excerpt from the Dark Energy Survey, which has released a massive,...
Dusty disk around HD 50138
The dusty disk around HD 50138 is part of a survey of 44 young massive stars to investigate planet formation in dusty, swirling disks — likely to become new solar systems. The image was taken with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) instrument on the Gemini South telescope of the International...
Dusty disk around HD 169142
The dusty disk around HD 169142 is part of a survey of 44 young massive stars to investigate planet formation in dusty, swirling disks — likely to become new solar systems. The image was taken with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) instrument on the Gemini South telescope of the International...
Elliptical galaxy NGC 474 — excerpt from the Dark Energy Survey
Elliptical galaxies are generally characterized by their relatively smooth appearance when compared with spiral galaxies (one of which is to the left), which have more flocculent structures interwoven with dust lanes and spiral arms. NGC 474 is at a distance of about 100 million light-years in...
Center of the Milky Way with DECam
This image of a region near the center of the Milky Way galaxy covers 0.5 by 0.25 degrees on the sky (an area about twice as wide as the full Moon) and contains over 180,000 stars. The image captures a portion of our galaxy about 220 by 110 light-years across. It was taken with the Dark Energy...
Spiral Galaxy Messier 106
This image of the spiral galaxy Messier 106, or NGC 4258, was taken with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. A popular target for amateur astronomers, Messier 106 can also be spotted with a small telescope in the constellation...
The faint red glow of a free-floating planet
This image shows a small region of the sky in the direction of the Upper Scorpius constellation. It zooms in on a recently discovered free-floating planet, meaning a planet that does not orbit a star but instead roams freely on its own. The free-floating planet is the tiny, bright red dot at...
Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula
This ethereal image, captured from Chile by the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, looks as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. It is, however, a structure known as the Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula, which is located near the center of the even larger Chamaeleon I dark...
The Hyades star cluster
Wide-field view of the Hyades star cluster created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
Galactic Quartet
A quartet of interacting galaxies is captured in this observation from Gemini South, which is one of the twin telescopes of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab. The four galaxies in this image are collectively known as NGC 6845, and lie roughly 270 million...
A Storm of Light
The constellation Coma Berenices hosts the galaxy NGC 4495 among myriad other astronomical objects. This galaxy has a tumultuous history: several supernovae have been recorded over the years, including the three named 1994S, 2010lo, and 2011ca. This last burst of energy from a dying star can be...
Wide-field view of the sky around CK Vulpeculae
This wide-field view shows the sky around the location of the historical exploding star CK Vulpeculae. The remains of the nova are only very faintly visible at the center of this picture.
CK Vulpeculae seen with Gemini North
The enigmatic CK Vulpeculae nebula. The team of astronomers measured the speeds and changes in positions of the two small reddish arcs about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom and 1/4 of the way down from the top to help determine that the nebula is expanding five times faster than previously...
Young stellar jet MHO 2147
The sinuous young stellar jet, MHO 2147, meanders lazily across a field of stars in this image captured from Chile by the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab. The stellar jet is the outflow from a young star that is embedded in an infrared dark cloud. Astronomers...
A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration. The stream of gas stretching to the right is what remains of a star that was pulled apart by the black hole. A cloud of hot plasma (gas atoms with their electrons stripped away) above the black hole is known as a corona.
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