Milky Way Galactic Centre
Wide-field view of the centre of the Milky Way
This visible light wide-field view shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) in the direction of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The entire image is filled with vast numbers of stars — but far more remain hidden behind clouds of dust and are only revealed...
Milky Way Galactic Centre
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...
Black hole
First image of our black hole (with wider background)
This is the first image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, with an added black background to fit wider screens. 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...
NGC 3254
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...
NGC 5643
Spirals Are In This Season
This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643 in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf). Looking this good isn’t easy; thirty different exposures, for a total of 9 hours observation time, together with the high resolution and clarity of Hubble,...
NGC 7329
Four Filter Fusion
This stellar whirlpool is a spiral galaxy named NCG 7329, which has been imaged by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Creating a colourful image such as this one using a telescope such as Hubble is not as straightforward as pointing and clicking a camera. Commercial cameras will typically try...
NGC 105
Galactic Conjunction
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies roughly 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. While it looks like NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighbouring galaxy, this is just the result of the chance...
NGC 2525
Hubble Captures Supernova in NGC 2525
Pictured here is part of the captivating galaxy NGC 2525. Located nearly 70 million light-years from Earth, this galaxy is part of the constellation of Puppis in the southern hemisphere. Together with the Carina and the Vela constellations, it makes up an image of the Argo from ancient greek...
NGC 6558
Hubble Spies a Glittering Gathering of Stars
This glittering gathering of stars is the globular cluster NGC 6558, and it was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. NGC 6558 is closer to the centre of the Milky Way than Earth is, and lies about 23 000 light years away in the constellation...
DEM L 249
Aftermath of a Cosmic Cataclysm
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the tattered remnant of a supernova — a titanic explosion marking the end of the life of a dying star. This object — known as DEM L249 — is thought to have been created by a Type 1a supernova during the death throes of a white dwarf....
Abell 370
Abell 370 Parallel Field with Asteroids
Some asteroids from within our Solar System have photobombed deep images of the Universe taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These asteroids reside, on average, only about 260 million kilometres from Earth — right around the corner in astronomical terms. Yet they've horned their way...
trans-Neptunian Objects
Herschels Population of Trans-Neptunian Objects
SAs Herschel space observatory has observed 132 of the known 1400 cold worlds that inhabit a region of the Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune, some 4.5-7.5 billion km from the Sun.
Messier 66
Purple haze
This Picture of the Week showcases the impressive NGC 3627 galaxy, also known as Messier 66, located approximately 31 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The image was taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. But...
M 99
Hubble Sees Double in M99
The magnificent spiral galaxy M99 fills the frame in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. M99 — which lies roughly 42 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices — is a “grand design” spiral galaxy, so-called because of the well-defined, prominent spiral...
Carina Nebula
Carina Nebula western wall (with adaptive optics)
A 50-trillion-km (33-trillion-mile, or 5 light-year) long section of the western wall in the Carina Nebula, as observed with adaptive optics on the Gemini South telescope. This mountainous section of the nebula reveals a number of unusual structures including a long series of parallel ridges...
Carina Nebula
Carina Nebula (NGC 3372)
This image shows a giant star-forming region in the southern sky known as the Carina Nebula (NGC3372), combining the light from 3 different filters tracing emission from oxygen (blue), hydrogen (green), and sulfur (red). The color is also representative of the temperature in the ionized gas:...
NGC 1566
Spiral galaxy NGC 1566
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 galaxy NGC 1566 as it twirls, flinging its arms through the vastness 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...
Centaurus Constellation
The sky around the triple-star system HD 131399
This wide-field image shows a piece of the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur) centred on the position of the triple star HD 131399. It was created from images from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. HD 131399 itself appears as a star of moderate brightness exactly at the centre of the picture.
HD 131399Ab
SPHERE observations of the planet HD 131399Ab
This composite image shows the newly discovered exoplanet HD 131399Ab in the triple-star system HD 131399. The image of the planet was obtained with the SPHERE imager on the ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile. This is the first exoplanet to be discovered by SPHERE and one of very few...
Wide-Field View of the Hickson Compact Group 40
This image shows a wide-field view centred on the Hickson Compact Group 40.
HCG 40
The Hickson Compact Group 40
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 32nd birthday with a stunning look at an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies, called the Hickson Compact Group 40. This snapshot reflects a special moment in their lifetimes as they fall together before they merge.
GNz7q in the Hubble GOODS-North field
An international team of astronomers using archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other space- and ground-based observatories have discovered a unique object in the distant, early Universe that is a crucial link between young star-forming galaxies and the earliest...
VV689
Hubble Inspects a Set of Galactic Wings
Two merging galaxies in the VV689 system — nicknamed the Angel Wing —feature in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In this view, the focus is placed on the system itself, allowing a closer look at it's unique morphology.
VV689
Hubble Inspects a Set of Galactic Wings
Two merging galaxies in the VV689 system — nicknamed the Angel Wing —feature in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Unlike chance alignments of galaxies which only appear to overlap as seen from our vantage point on Earth, the two galaxies in VV689 are in the midst of a...
M45
M45 Pleiades
This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona. The Pleiades are an open cluster easily visible to the naked eye. The cluster is dominated by several hot, luminous and massive stars. The blue nebulosity surrounding the...
EGB 6
A Dead Star’s Shroud
This image, which looks a little like an enormous bubble in space, features a planetary nebula known as EGB 6. It was imaged by the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Planetary nebulae, notoriously, have nothing to do with...
NGC 4548
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...
J143205.7+341647.5.
NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (sub-section)
This first release from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS) consists of the optical images in 1.15 x 1.15 degrees (pixel size 0.258 arc seconds) of the Bootes field, one of the two NDWFS sky fields. Covering roughly 7 percent of the total survey area, this region contains approximately...
Scorpius 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...
M97
Owl Nebula, M97, NGC 3587
This composite image of the Owl Nebula (also known as M97 or NGC3587) was created from three sets of narrowband images taken at the 0.6-meter Burrell Schmidt telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in June 1991. The colors in the image correspond to oxygen [O III] in blue, nitrogen [N II]...
SN 2002ic
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...
NGC 5394
Galactic Dance
Image of the interacting galaxy pair NGC 5394/5 obtained with NSF's NOIRLab's Gemini North 8-meter telescope on Hawai'i's Maunakea using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph in imaging mode. This four-color composite image has a total exposure time of 42 minutes
FRB 180916.J0158+65
Fast Radio Burst 180916 Host Galaxy (unannotated)
Image of the host galaxy of FRB 180916 (center) acquired with the 8-meter Gemini-North telescope of NOIRLab on Hawaii’s Maunakea. Images acquired in SDSS g’, r’, and z’ filters are used for the blue, green, and red colors, respectively.
Barnard’s Galaxy
NOIRLab releases best view yet of a neighboring dwarf galaxy
Barnard’s Galaxy, a dwarf galaxy neighboring the Milky Way, is revealed in this stunning image from the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab. The image reveals regions of intense star formation and a scattering of immense...
Abell 3827
Striking image shows mass distribution of nearby galaxy cluster
Using the Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers are measuring weak gravitational lensing to map the distribution of mass in nearby galaxy clusters. As well as producing remarkable images like this one, the information will shed...
IC 10
Portrait of a Starburst Galaxy
KPNO captures irregular starburst galaxy IC 10 in glorious detail This striking image from NOIRLab’s Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) presents a portrait of the irregular galaxy IC 10, a disorderly starburst galaxy close to the Milky Way. As well as a population of bright young stars, this...
CK Vulpeculae
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.
Milky Way
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...
BDR J1750+3809
Infrared detection of the cold brown dwarf
An infrared image of the cold brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809 taken with Gemini North’s acquisition camera for the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) and Gemini’s Near InfraRed Imager and spectrograph (NIRI). The image is a color composite showing the infrared filters in chromatic order,...
Large Magellanic Cloud
Deepest, widest view of the Large Magellanic Cloud from SMASH
Part of the SMASH dataset showing an unprecedented wide-angle view of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and, unlike the rest of the satellite galaxies, are still actively forming stars — and at a rapid pace. The...
CK Vulpeculae
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...
NGC 1003
NGC 1003 (wide crop)
A stunning long-exposure observation lasting 70 minutes from the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, reveals the surroundings of the spiral galaxy NGC 1003 in glorious detail. NGC 1003 resides in front of a galaxy cluster — a vast...
