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Sculptor Galaxy
MUSE view of ionised gas in the Sculptor Galaxy
This image shows the Sculptor Galaxy in a new light. This false-colour composition shows specific wavelengths of light released by hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen. These elements exist in gas form all over the galaxy, but the mechanisms causing this gas to glow can vary throughout the...
Sculptor Galaxy
MUSE view of the Sculptor Galaxy
This image shows a detailed, thousand-colour image of the Sculptor Galaxy captured with the MUSE instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Regions of pink light are spread throughout this whole galactic snapshot, which come from ionised hydrogen in star-forming regions. These areas have...
Spying a spiral through a cosmic lens
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at...
NGC 4449
Small but mighty
This portrait from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope puts the nearby galaxy NGC 4449 in the spotlight. The galaxy is situated just 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). It is a member of the M94 galaxy group, which is near the Local Group of...
Chamaeleon
The Ominous Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud
The ominous Chamaeleon I dark cloud, the nearest star-forming region to Earth, is captured in this image taken with the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo...
IC 758
Stirring the interstellar soup
This serene spiral galaxy hides a cataclysmic past. The galaxy IC 758, shown here in today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week, is situated 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. In this Hubble image captured in 2023, IC 758 appears peaceful, its soft...
RIK 113
Caution: Planets under construction
Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet on camera, hidden somewhere in this stellar snapshot. Today’s Picture of the Week is a close-up of the star RIK 113, seen here surrounded by a cloud of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc. These discs are a common feature around young...
NGC 685
Starry spectacle
A galaxy ablaze with young stars is the subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. This galaxy is called NGC 685 and is situated about 64 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus (The River). NGC 685 is classified as a barred spiral because its...
SN 1987A
Ring-shaped nebula around SN 1987A
High resolution NTT image of supernova SN 1987A taken from La Silla Observatory in December 1993. Seven years after the explosion of SN 1987A, the observations indicate the beginning of a more active phase while the interaction between the stellar material which was ejected during the explosion...
Phoenix Dwarf
An explosive phoenix
This image shows a dwarf galaxy in the southern constellation of Phoenix named, for obvious reasons, the Phoenix Dwarf. The Phoenix Dwarf is unique in that it cannot be classified according to the usual scheme for dwarf galaxies; while its shape would label it as a spheroidal dwarf galaxy —...
NGC 4981
When stars explode
Over 75 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) lies NGC 4981 — a spiral galaxy with a rather explosive past. NGC 4981 was discovered on 17 April 1784 by William Herschel, and subsequently documented in John Dreyer’s New General Catalogue. Over a century later, on...
R Aquarii
VLT view of binary system R Aquarii from 2012
This image reveals a dramatic binary star system named R Aquarii, located 700 light-years from Earth, as seen in 2012 by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). R Aquarii is a so-called “symbiotic binary”, comprising two stars surrounded by a large, dynamic cloud of gas (a nebula). Systems like this...
Featured from the Archive
NGC 6505
Euclid image of a bright Einstein ring around galaxy NGC 6505
The ring of light surrounding the centre of the galaxy NGC 6505, captured by ESA’s Euclid telescope, is a stunning example of an Einstein ring. NGC 6505 is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. The almost perfect alignment of NGC 6505 and the background galaxy...
