A deep look into a dark sky
Can you count the number of bright dots in this picture? This crowded frame is a deep-field image obtained using the Wide Field Imager (WFI), a camera mounted on a relatively modestly sized telescope, the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre located at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This image is one of five...
ESO’s New Technology Telescope revisits NGC 6300
This image shows the bright centre and swirling arms of the spiral galaxy NGC 6300. NGC 6300 is located in a starry patch of sky in the southern constellation of Ara (The Altar) which contains a variety of intriguing deep-sky objects. NGC 6300 has beautiful pinwheeling arms connected by a...
Seeing into the heart of Mira A and its partner
Studying red giant stars tells astronomers about the future of the Sun — and about how previous generations of stars spread the elements needed for life across the Universe. One of the most famous red giants in the sky is called Mira A, part of the binary system Mira which lies about 400...
Scarlet and smoke
The smokey black silhouette in this new image is part of a large, sparse cloud of partially ionised hydrogen — an HII region — known as Gum 15. In wide-field images this nebula appears as a striking reddish purple clump dotted with stars and slashed by opaque, weaving dust lanes. This image...
Surprise within a cloud
This image shows a region of the Milky Way that lies within the constellation of Scorpius, close to the central plane of the galaxy. The region hosts a dense cloud of dust and gas associated with the molecular cloud IRAS 16562-3959, clearly visible as an orange smudge among the rich pool of...
Galactic chromodynamics
This colourful picture resembles an abstract painting, or perhaps a contemporary stained-glass window. But it is actually an unusual view of a galaxy taken with the new MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Colours in astronomical pictures are usually related to the real colour of an...
VLT tracks Rosetta's comet
The bright, hazy smudge at the centre of this image is a comet known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, or 67P/C-G for short. This is not just any comet; it is the target for ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, which is currently deep within the comet’s coma and less than 100 kilometres from its nucleus [1]....
VST snaps Gaia en route to a billion stars
These new images from ESO's Very Large Telescope Survey Telescope (VST) show ESA's Gaia spacecraft in its position some 1.5 million kilometres beyond Earth's orbit. Launched on the morning of Thursday, 19 December 2013, the satellite is on a quest to build a 3D map of our galaxy over the next...
The path of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in October 2013
This image shows the path of 4-kilometre diameter comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, last observed on 5 October 2013 by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) when the comet was around 500 million kilometres away — before it passed behind the Sun and out of view from Earth's perspective. Viewed against...
VLT snap of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in October 2013
This image shows the most recent observations of 4-kilometre diameter comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, taken on 5 October 2013 by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) when the comet was around 500 million kilometres away — before it passed behind the Sun and out of view from Earth's perspective....
Surprise cloud around vast star
This new picture from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO's Paranal Observatory shows the remarkable super star cluster Westerlund 1 (eso1034). This exceptionally bright cluster lies about 16 000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Ara (The Altar). It contains hundreds of...
Rosetta's comet
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will wake up today, 20 January, after 31 months in deep space hibernation, to finally close in on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/CG). This image shows the most recent observations of the 4-kilometre diameter comet, taken on 5 October 2013 by ESO's Very Large...
New image of comet ISON
This new view of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was taken with the TRAPPIST–South national telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory on the morning of Friday 15 November 2013. Comet ISON was first spotted in our skies in September 2012, and will make its closest approach to the Sun in late November 2013....
Unveiling distant stars and galaxies
This frame, scattered with distant stars and galaxies, is a deep-field image taken using the Wide Field Imager (WFI), a camera mounted on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope located at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. It was snapped as part of the COMBO-17 survey (Classifying Objects by ...
New cool starlet in our backyard
This new image, from ESO’s VISTA telescope, shows a newly-discovered brown dwarf nicknamed VVV BD001, which is located at the very centre of this zoomable image. It is the first new brown dwarf spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood as part of the VVV Survey. VVV BD001 is located about 55...
PESSTO snaps Supernova in Messier 74
ESO's PESSTO survey has captured this view of Messier 74, a stunning spiral galaxy with well-defined whirling arms. However, the real subject of this image is the galaxy's brilliant new addition from late July 2013: a Type II supernova named SN2013ej that is visible as the brightest star at the...
A wide-field view of the area around the Abell 901/902 supercluster
This wide-field view shows the region around the Abell 901/902 supercluster of galaxies, as seen in visible light. This view was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. See potw1304a for more information about Abell 901/902.
Carved by massive stars
This image, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, shows a small part of the well-known emission nebula, NGC 6357, located some 8000 light-years away, in the tail of the southern constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The image glows with the characteristic red of an H...
The calm before the storm
This beautiful image portrays the galaxies NGC 799 (below) and NGC 800 (above) located in the constellation of Cetus (The Whale). This pair of galaxies was first observed by the American astronomer Lewis Swift back in 1885. Located at a distance of about 300 million light-years, our face-on...
Messier 100 — grand design splendour
Spiral galaxies are usually very aesthetically appealing objects, and never more so than when they appear face-on. And this image is a particularly splendid example: it is the grand design spiral galaxy Messier 100, located in the southern part of the constellation of Coma Berenices, and ...
An intergalactic heavyweight
This deep-field image shows what is known as a supercluster of galaxies — a giant group of galaxy clusters which are themselves clustered together. This one, known as Abell 901/902, comprises three separate main clusters and a number of filaments of galaxies, typical of such super-structures....
The lost galaxy
This image depicts the galaxy NGC 4535, in the constellation of Virgo (The Maiden), on a beautiful background full of many distant faint galaxies. Its almost circular appearance shows that we observe it nearly face-on. In the centre of the galaxy, there is a well-defined bar structure, with...
The Cat's Paw remastered
The Cat’s Paw Nebula is revisited in a combination of exposures from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope and expert amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Ryan M. Hannahoe. The distinctive shape of the nebula is revealed in reddish puffy clouds of glowing gas against a dark sky dotted with stars....
From Cosmic Spare Tyre to Ethereal Blossom
IC 5148 is a beautiful planetary nebula located some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Grus (The Crane). The nebula has a diameter of a couple of light-years, and it is still growing at over 50 kilometres per second — one of the fastest expanding planetary nebulae known. The term...
A surprising superbubble
This colourful new view shows the star-forming region LHA 120-N44 [1] in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This picture combines the view in visible light from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile with images in infrared...
Mapping dark matter in galaxies
A multitude of faint galaxies, small luminous dots scattered over the dark sky, was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Images such as this one are powerful tools to understand how dark matter is distributed in galaxies.
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.
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