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Hubble observes new tidal disruption event (January 2025 image)
Lurking 600 million light-years away, within the inky black depths between stars, there is an invisible monster gulping down any wayward star that plummets toward it. The black hole revealed its presence in a newly identified tidal disruption event (TDE) where a hapless star was ripped apart...
2M1510 (AB) b
2M1510 AB, a pair of brown dwarfs with an exoplanet in a perpendicular orbit
This image, taken in visible light, shows 2M1510 AB, a pair of brown dwarfs orbiting each other. The two brown dwarfs, A and B, are seen as a single source in this image, but we know there are two of them because they periodically eclipse each other. When monitoring their orbits, astronomers...
LEDA 677373
A stubborn dwarf galaxy
The fuzzy collection of stars seen in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image forms an intriguing dwarf galaxy named LEDA 677373, located about 14 million light-years away from us. Dwarf galaxies are small, faint collections of stars and gas. Their diverse properties make them intriguing...
NGC 3596
Face to face with a spiral’s arms
The spiral galaxy NGC 3596 is on display in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week, which incorporates six different wavelengths of light. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The galaxy was discovered in 1784 by astronomer William...
Gum 80
There is an impostor in this nebula
In space, not everything is what it seems. This Picture of the Week shows the nebula Sh2-46, also named Gum 80, situated roughly 6000 light-years away. The strong red hues of Sh2-46 might be beautiful, but they hide an impostor. The big blue-white star at the centre of the image is HD 165319,...
NGC 1760
Early SPHEREx Observations: NGC 1760 at 3.29 microns
NASA's SPHEREx mission is observing the entire sky in 102 colors of infrared light not visible to the human eye. This image shows a section of sky in one wavelength (3.29 microns), revealing the glow of sooty, carbon-based dust particles known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (or PAH's). It is...
NGC 1760
Early SPHEREx Observations: NGC 1760 at 0.96 microns
NASA's SPHEREx mission is observing the entire sky in 102 colors of infrared light not visible to the human eye. This image shows a section of sky in one wavelength (0.96 microns), revealing the glow of ionized gaseous sulfur, heated by nearby stars to a degree that it has lost two of its...
NGC 1760
Early SPHEREx Observations: NGC 1760 at 0.98 microns
NASA's SPHEREx mission is observing the entire sky in 102 colors of infrared light not visible to the human eye. This image shows a section of sky in one wavelength (0.98 microns), of the star-forming nebula known as NGC 1760. At this wavelength there is very little glow from the gas and dust...
Andromeda Galaxy
Wide-field view of the Andromeda Galaxy
This ground-based image shows the full extent of the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or M 31. The Andromeda Galaxy appears very large in the sky — several times the size of the full Moon (although much fainter). Hubble is designed to make highly detailed observations of much smaller...
Abell 1489
Cosmic Community of Abell 1489
Punctuating the deep black of this Image of the Week are hundreds of blobs of light, each one an entire galaxy in our Universe. Many of the yellowish points are members of the galaxy cluster Abell 1489, imaged here using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini North, one half of...
NGC 6397
Hubble Space Telescope Image of Globular Cluster NGC 6397
Hubble Space Telescope Image of Globular Cluster NGC 6397
LEDA 42160
An unlikely spiral
This image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the Virgo cluster, a massive cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas,...
Abell 1758
Northern part of Abell 1758
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758, A1758N. The cluster is approximately 3.2 billion light-years from Earth and is part of a larger structure containing two cluster sitting some 2.4 million light-years apart. But A1758N...
NGC 4631
The belly of the cosmic whale
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has peered deep into NGC 4631, better known as the Whale Galaxy. Here, a profusion of starbirth lights up the galactic centre, revealing bands of dark material between us and the starburst. The galaxy’s activity tapers off in its outer regions where there...
Messier 87
A cosmic searchlight
Streaming out from the centre of the galaxy M87 like a cosmic searchlight is one of nature's most amazing phenomena, a black-hole-powered jet of electrons and other sub-atomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. In this Hubble telescope image, the blue jet contrasts with the...
UGC 7342
Hubble view of green filament in galaxy UGC 7342
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows ghostly green filaments, lying within galaxy UGC 7342. This filament was illuminated by a blast of radiation from a quasar — a very luminous and compact region that surrounds the supermassive black hole at the centre of its host galaxy. Its...
NGC 6786
NGC 6786
This Hubble image displays a beautiful pair of interacting spiral galaxies with swirling arms. The smaller of the two, dubbed LEDA 62867 and positioned to the left of the frame, seems to be safe for now, but will probably be swallowed by the larger spiral galaxy, NGC 6786 (to the right),...
VCC 1993
VCC 1993 in the Virgo cluster of galaxies
Virgo cluster galaxy VCC 1993. Hubble's "eye" is so sharp that it was able to pick out the fuzzy globular clusters, which, at that distance, look like individual stars bunched up around the galaxies, instead of groupings of stars.
Mars
Mars on Dec. 3, 2007; longitude ~225 degrees
Mars observation taken Dec. 3, 2007; longitude ~225 degrees
Abell 370
Digitized sky survey image of Abell 370 (ground-based image)
This image is a colour composite made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The field of view is approximately 2.2 x 2.2 degrees.
Bug Nebula
Butterfly emerges from stellar demise in planetary nebula NGC 6302
This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene. What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to nearly 20 000 degrees Celsius. The gas is tearing across space at more than 950 000 kilometres per hour — fast enough to travel...
Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex
The first anniversary image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet...
UGC 8091
Dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 8091 (wide-field view)
For the end of the year and the holiday season Hubble has captured the festive bundle of lights known as UGC 8091. UGC 8091, also known as GR 8, lies around seven million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. It is a dwarf irregular galaxy: a comparatively small, low-mass galaxy...
GRB990712
Gamma-ray burst host galaxy GRB990712
This is an image of Gamma-ray Burst Host Galaxy GRB990712. Long-duration gamma-ray bursts are powerful flashes of high-energy radiation that are sometimes seen coming from supernovae — the explosions of extremely massive stars. This image is one of a set of images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space...
Cone Nebula
Hubble's newest camera images ghostly star-forming pillar of gas and dust
Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this celestial object is actually just a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula (in NGC 2264) - so named because in ground-based images it has a conical shape - this monstrous pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming...
NGC 1999
A reflection nebula in Orion
Just weeks after NASA astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999, the Hubble Heritage Project snapped this picture of NGC 1999, a nebula in the constellation Orion. The Heritage astronomers, in collaboration with scientists in Texas and Ireland, used Hubble's Wide Field...
NGC 3717
A Spiral in Profile
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope sees galaxies of all shapes, sizes, brightnesses, and orientations in the cosmos. Sometimes, the telescope gazes at a galaxy oriented sideways — as shown here. The spiral galaxy featured in this Picture of the Week is called NGC 3717, and it is located about...
IC 335
The beautiful side of IC 335
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the galaxy IC 335 in front of a backdrop of distant galaxies. IC 335 is part of a galaxy group containing three other galaxies, and located in the Fornax Galaxy Cluster 60 million light-years away. As seen in this image, the disc of IC 335...
NGC 4522
Hubble views NGC 4522
Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) allows astronomers to study an interesting and important phenomenon called ram pressure stripping that is so powerful, it is capable of mangling galaxies and even halting their star formation. NGC 4522 is a spectacular example of a spiral galaxy that...
NGC 1132
The gargantuan galaxy NGC 1132
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil - the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far...
IXO 5
Hubble image of NGC 1073
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to be a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 can help astronomers...
Boomerang Nebula
The Boomerang Nebula - the coolest place in the Universe?
The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula and the coldest object found in the Universe so far. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is yet another example of how Hubble's sharp eye reveals surprising details in celestial objects. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a...
NGC 2440
NGC 2440
NGC 2440 is another planetary nebula ejected by a dying star, but it has a much more chaotic structure than NGC 2346. The central star of NGC 2440 is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature near 200,000 degrees Celsius. The complex structure of the surrounding nebula suggests to...
NGC 2623
Hubble views results of NGC 2623 merger
Not surprisingly, interacting galaxies have a dramatic effect on each other. Studies have revealed that as galaxies approach one another massive amounts of gas are pulled from each galaxy towards the centre of the other, until ultimately, the two merge into one massive galaxy. NGC 2623 is in...
Carina Nebula
Hubble photographs turbulent neighborhood near eruptive star
A small portion of the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of swirling dust and gas near one of the most massive and eruptive stars in our galaxy is seen in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. This close-up view shows only a three light-year-wide portion of the entire Carina Nebula, which has...
Markarian 1018
The active galaxy Markarian 1018
The mystery of a rare change in the behaviour of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the distant galaxy Markarian 1018 has been solved by an international team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope along with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray...
AFGL 4104
An interstellar butterfly
They say the flap of a butterfly's wings can set off a tornado on the other side of the world. But what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in the depths of space? This cosmic butterfly is a nebula known as AFGL 4104, or Roberts 22. Caused by a star that is nearing the end of its life and...
Messier 65
Messier 65 through the years
The 1st of March 1780 was a particularly productive night for Charles Messier. Combing the constellation of Leo for additions to his grand astronomical catalogue, he struck on not one, but two, new objects. One of those objects is seen here: Messier 65. "Nebula discovered in Leo: It is very...
M 105
The heart of the Lion
It might appear featureless and unexciting at first glance, but NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations of this elliptical galaxy — known as Messier 105 — show that the stars near the galaxy’s centre are moving very rapidly. Astronomers have concluded that these stars are zooming around a...
NGC 6535
An ancient globule
This image captures the stunning NGC 6535, a globular cluster 22 000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent) that measures one light-year across. Globular clusters are tightly bound groups of stars which orbit galaxies. The large mass in the rich stellar centre of the...
Charon
The Pluto system on Feb. 15, 2006 (non-annotated)
Anxiously awaited follow-up observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of two new moons around the distant planet Pluto. The moons were first discovered by Hubble in May 2005, but the science team probed even deeper into the Pluto system last week to look...
Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
It came from outer space
Named after its discoverer, the French-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan, this is the globular cluster Terzan 7 — a densely packed ball of stars bound together by gravity. It lies just over 75 000 light-years away from us on the other side of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is a peculiar cluster,...
ESO 149-003
Blue and gold
This sprinkling of cosmic glitter makes up the galaxy known as ESO 149-3, located some 20 million light-years away from us. It is an example of an irregular galaxy, characterised by its amorphous, undefined shape — a property that sets it apart from its perhaps more photogenic spiral and...
ESO 499-G37
A loose spiral galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the spiral galaxy ESO 499-G37, seen here against a backdrop of distant galaxies, scattered with nearby stars. The galaxy is viewed from an angle, allowing Hubble to reveal its spiral nature clearly. The faint, loose spiral arms can be...
2MASS J03285694+3116222
The smoking gun of a newborn star
In this image the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the smoking gun of a newborn star, the Herbig–Haro objects numbered 7 to 11 (HH 7–11). These five objects, visible in blue in the top centre of the image, lie within NGC 1333, a reflection nebula full of gas and dust found about a...
Dione
Quadruple Saturn moon transit snapped by Hubble
On 24 February 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. The moons, from far left to right, are the white icy moons Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the angle of the...
Messier 42
Sculpting the landscape
This glowing region reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected by the Trapezium stars - collide with material.
Mars
Mars: closest approach 2007
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 88 million kilometers away. This colour image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Mars will be...
Jupiter
Uncovering the mysteries of Jupiter's aurora
This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on 26 November 1998 and gives a good impression of the observations that Hubble will make in the weeks to come. The bright emissions above the dark blue background are auroral lights, similar...
N 83B
N83B - massive infant stars rock their cradle
Extremely intense radiation from newly born, ultra-bright stars has blown a glowing spherical bubble in the nebula N83B, also known as NGC 1748. A new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image has helped to decipher the complex interplay of gas and radiation of a star-forming region in a nearby...
NGC 7052
Disk around a black hole in galaxy NGC 7052 (Hubble WFPC2 view)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, in visible light. Details as small as 50 light-years across can be seen.
NGC 4183
Hubble portrays a dusty spiral galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with another outstanding image of a nearby galaxy. This week, we highlight the galaxy NGC 4183, seen here with a beautiful backdrop of distant galaxies and nearby stars. Located about 55 million light-years from the Sun and spanning about...
NGC 4845
Supermassive and super-hungry
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4845, located over 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy’s orientation clearly reveals the galaxy’s striking spiral structure: a flat and dust-mottled disc surrounding a bright...
IC 4710
A frenzy of stars
Discovered in 1900 by astronomer DeLisle Stewart and here imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, IC 4710 is an undeniably spectacular sight. The galaxy is a busy cloud of bright stars, with bright pockets — marking bursts of new star formation — scattered around its edges. IC 4710 is a...
Andromeda Galaxy
Stars in the Andromeda Galaxy’s disc
This image shows NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images of a small part of the disc of the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. Hubble’s position above the distorting effect of the atmosphere, combined with the galaxy’s relative proximity, means that the galaxy can be...
NGC 2023
Sunset glow in Orion
The magnificent reflection nebula NGC 2023 lies nearly 1500 light-years from Earth. It is located within the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), in a prestigious area of the sky close to the well-known Flame and Horsehead Nebulae. The entire structure of NGC 2023 is vast, at four light-years...
NGC 1806
A great ball of stars
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has turned its sharp eye towards a tight collection of stars, first seen 174 years ago. The result is a sparkling image of NGC 1806, tens of thousands of stars gravitationally bound into a rich cluster. Commonly called globular clusters, most of these objects...
NGC 6752
Young stars at home in an ancient cluster
Looking like a hoard of gems fit for an emperor’s collection, this deep sky object called NGC 6752 is in fact far more worthy of admiration. It is a globular cluster, and at over 10 billion years old is one the most ancient collections of stars known. It has been blazing for well over twice as...
Abell 2163
Cosmic fireflies
Galaxies glow like fireflies in this spectacular NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image! This flickering swarm of cosmic fireflies is a rich cluster of galaxies called Abell 2163. Abell 2163 is a member of the Abell catalogue, an all-sky catalogue of over 4000 galaxy clusters. It is...
SNR 0454-67.2
Tangled — cosmic edition
This dark, tangled web is an object named SNR 0454-67.2. It formed in a very violent fashion — it is a supernova remnant, created after a massive star ended its life in a cataclysmic explosion and threw its constituent material out into surrounding space. This created the messy formation we see...
RXC J0232.2-4420
Strings of homeless stars
This sparkling Picture of the Week features a massive galaxy cluster named RXC J0232.2-4420. This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive...
UGCA 281
Dwarf galaxy UGCA 281
UGCA 281 is a blue compact dwarf galaxy located in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Within it, two giant star clusters appear brilliant white and are swaddled by greenish hydrogen gas clouds. These clusters are responsible for most of the recent star formation in UGCA 281; the rest of the...
NGC 5714
The curious case of calcium-rich supernovae
This image, captured by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5714, about 130 million light-years away in the constellation of Boötes (the Herdsman). NGC 5714 is classified as a Sc spiral galaxy, but its spiral arms — the...
NGC 5949
Small but significant
The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a dwarf galaxy named NGC 5949. Thanks to its proximity to Earth — it sits at a distance of around 44 million light-years from us, placing it within the Milky Way’s cosmic neighbourhood — NGC 5949 is a perfect target for astronomers...
Sh2-308
Inflating Sh2-308
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope still has a few tricks up its sleeve in its task of exploring the Universe. For one, it is able to image two adjacent parts of the sky simultaneously. It does this using two different cameras — one camera can be trained on the target object itself, and the...
IC 5201
A closer look at IC 5201
In 1900, astronomer Joseph Lunt made a discovery: Peering through a telescope at Cape Town Observatory, the British–South African scientist spotted this beautiful sight in the southern constellation of Grus (The Crane): a barred spiral galaxy now named IC 5201. Over a century later, the galaxy...
NGC 4833
A sky full of stars
Located approximately 22 000 light-years away in the constellation of Musca (The Fly), this tightly packed collection of stars — known as a globular cluster — goes by the name of NGC 4833. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the dazzling stellar group in all its glory. NGC 4833...
NGC 1222
A greedy giant
NGC 1222, seen in this image taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST), is a galaxy with a rather eventful story to tell. NGC 1222 has been described as a peculiar example of a type of galaxy known as a lenticular galaxy. Typically, this kind of...
Abell 2744
Galaxy cluster Abell 2744 with dark matter map
This is a NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Shown in blue on the image is a map of the dark matter found within the cluster. This cluster was part of a study of 72 galaxy cluster collisions which determined that dark matter interacts with other dark matter...
NGC 3021
A cosmological measuring tape
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3021 which lies about 100 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo Minor (The Little Lion). Among many other types of stars, this galaxy contains Cepheid variable stars, which can be used work out the distance to...
DDO 6
A flock of stars
The glittering specks in this image, resembling a distant flock of flying birds, are the stars that make up the dwarf galaxy ESO 540-31. Captured in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the dwarf galaxy lies just over 11 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation...
2002 LM60
Ground-based image of Arp 116 and its surroundings
This image from a ground-based telescope shows the galaxy pair Arp 116 (made up of the elliptical galaxy M60 and the spiral galaxy NGC 4647) and its surroundings.
ESO 121-6
A side-on spiral streak
This thin, glittering streak of stars is the spiral galaxy ESO 121-6, which lies in the southern constellation of Pictor (The Painter's Easel). Viewed almost exactly side-on, the intricate structure of the swirling arms is hidden, but the full length of the galaxy can be seen — including...
ESO 318-13
Glitter galaxy — An edge-on view of the ESO 318-13 galaxy
The brilliant cascade of stars through the middle of this image is the galaxy ESO 318-13 as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Despite being located millions of light-years from Earth, the stars captured in this image are so bright and clear you could almost attempt to count...
Andromeda Galaxy
Stars in the Andromeda Galaxy’s halo with background galaxies (2)
This image shows NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images of a small part of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. The halo is the huge and sparse sphere of stars that surrounds a galaxy. While there are relatively few stars in a galaxy’s halo, studies of the rotation rate of galaxies suggest that...
NGC 5010
A galaxy colourfully waning
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a beautiful galaxy that, with its reddish and yellow central area, looks rather like an explosion from a Hollywood movie. The galaxy, called NGC 5010, is in a period of transition. The aging galaxy is moving on from life as a spiral galaxy, like...
NGC 7006
A remote outpost of the Milky Way
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a compact and distant globular star cluster that lies in one of the smallest constellations in the night sky, Delphinus (The Dolphin). Due to its modest size, great distance and relatively low brightness, NGC 7006 is often ignored by amateur...
Herschel 36
Wide-field view of the Lagoon Nebula (ground-based image)
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the area around the Lagoon Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 8. This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
Carina Nebula
Wide view of “Mystic Mountain”
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photograph, which is stranger than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years high,...
Saturn
Hubble provides clear images of Saturn's aurora
This is the first image of Saturn's ultraviolet aurora taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope in October 1997, when Saturn was a distance of 810 million miles (1.3 billion kilometers) from Earth. The new instrument, used as a camera,...
M 20
Full HST WFPC2 image of Trifid Nebula
Three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust make the Trifid Nebula one of the most recognizable and striking star birth regions in the night sky. The dust, silhouetted against glowing gas and illuminated by starlight, cradles the bright stars at the heart of the Trifid. This nebula,...
Terzan 5
The unusual cluster Terzan
Peering through the thick dust clouds of the galactic bulge an international team of astronomers has revealed the unusual mix of stars in the stellar cluster known as Terzan 5. The new results indicate that Terzan 5 is in fact one of the bulge's primordial building blocks, most likely the relic...
Cat's Eye Nebula
The Cat's Eye Nebula
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen, NGC 6543, nicknamed the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Hubble reveals surprisingly intricate structures including concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas and unusual shock-induced knots of gas....
NGC 6752
Globular cluster NGC 6752
This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a part of the globular cluster NGC 6752. The observations were made to study white dwarfs within it and to use these stars to measure the age of the globular cluster. Analysing the data, astronomers discovered a previously...
Circinus
Active galaxy Circinus
Resembling a swirling witch's cauldron of glowing vapors, the black hole-powered core of a nearby active galaxy appears in this colorful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy lies 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus. This galaxy is designated a type 2...
GN-z9-1
GN-z9-1 in the GOODS-N field
This image shows an ultra-bright young galaxy known as GN-z9-1, discovered in the Hubble GOODS North field (Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey). Researchers found four unusually red objects, including GN-z9-1, that appear as they existed just 500 million years after the Big Bang. They...
Antennae Galaxies
Colliding galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039
This is a close-up view of a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies, called the Antennae galaxies. The image is 1,500 light-years across. The image shows entrapped dust and gas funneled into the centre of the galaxy.
Saturn
Double light show in a single shot: Hubble images both of Saturn's aurorae
An enormous and grand ringed planet, Saturn is certainly one of the most intriguing bodies orbiting the Sun. This unique Hubble image from early 2009 features Saturn with the rings edge-on and both poles in view, offering a stunning double view of its fluttering aurorae. Created by the...
109-327
109-327
One of 42 new proplyds discovered in the Orion Nebula, 109-327 is one of the bright proplyds that lies relatively close to the nebula’s brightest star, Theta 1 Orionis C. This tadpole-shaped tail is actually a jet of matter flowing away from the excited cusp.
177-341E
177-341E
One of 42 new proplyds discovered in the Orion Nebula, 177-341E is one of the bright proplyds that lies relatively close to the nebula’s brightest star, Theta 1 Orionis C. The tadpole-shaped tail is actually a jet of matter flowing away from the excited cusp.
231-838
231-838
One of 42 new proplyds discovered in the Orion Nebula, 231-838 is one of the bright proplyds that lies relatively close to the nebula’s brightest star, Theta 1 Orionis C. Resembling a boomerang, this proplyd is surrounded by a shock wave that is caused by stellar wind from the massive Theta 1...
170-249
170-249
One of 42 new proplyds discovered in the Orion Nebula, 170-249 is one of the bright proplyds that lies relatively close to the nebula’s brightest star, Theta 1 Orionis C. The tadpole-shaped tail is actually a jet of matter flowing away from the excited cusp.
NGC 4755
Wide field image of the Jewel Box (ground-based image)
This image of the well-known NGC 4755 cluster or Jewel Box was taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory. It highlights the cluster and its rich surroundings in all their multicoloured glory. The field of view is 20 arcminutes...
Abell 1656
The Coma Galaxy Cluster as seen by Hubble
Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has viewed a large portion of the Coma Cluster, stretching across several million light-years across. The entire spherical cluster is more than 20 million light-years in diameter and contains thousands of galaxies. Most of the galaxies that inhabit the...
Sagittarius
Galactic centre region in infrared from Spitzer
The Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared-light observations provide a detailed and spectacular view of the galactic centre region. The swirling core of our galaxy harbours hundreds of thousands of stars that cannot be seen in visible light. These stars heat the nearby gas and dust. These dusty...
NGC 4755
A Hubble gem: the Jewel Box
This image is a "close-up' view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of NGC 4755, or the Jewel Box cluster. Several very bright, pale blue supergiant stars, a solitary ruby-red supergiant and a variety of other brilliantly coloured stars are visible in the image, as well as many much...
ESO 255-7
ESO 255-7
ESO 255-7 consists of a quartet of interacting galaxies. Three or four galaxies are embedded in a common structure with an arc-like shape. The upper part of this structure appears almost like one single galaxy but has in fact two component galaxies. The lowest galaxy is substantially obscured...
Arp 220
Arp 220
Arp 220 appears to be a single, odd-looking galaxy, but is in fact a nearby example of the aftermath of a collision between two spiral galaxies. It is the brightest of the three galactic mergers closest to Earth, about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Serpens, the Serpent....
NGC 6090
NGC 6090
NGC 6090 is a beautiful pair of spiral galaxies with an overlapping central region and two long tidal tails formed from material ripped out of the galaxies by gravitational interaction. The two visible cores are approximately 10,000 light-years apart, suggesting that the two galaxies are at an...
Arp 81
NGC 6621, NGC 6622
Arp 81 is a strongly interacting pair of galaxies, seen about 100 million years after their closest approach. It consists of NGC 6621 (to the right) and NGC 6622 (to the left). NGC 6621 is the larger of the two, and is a very disturbed spiral galaxy. The encounter has pulled a long tail out of...
Arp 182
NGC 7674
NGC 7674 (seen just above the centre), also known as Markarian 533, is the brightest and largest member of the so-called Hickson 96 compact group of galaxies, consisting of four galaxies. This stunning Hubble image shows a spiral galaxy nearly face-on. The central bar-shaped structure is made...
IRAS 20351+2521
IRAS 20351+2521
IRAS 20351+2521 is a galaxy with a sprawling structure of gas, dust and numerous blue star knots. IRAS 20351+2521 is located in the constellation of Vulpecula, the Fox, 450 million light-years away from Earth. This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by...
Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 - Fragment G [18 April 2006]
Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3's Fragment G.
Saturn
Hubble's Latest Saturn Picture Precedes Cassini's Arrival
As NASA's Cassini spacecraft hurtles toward a July 1, 2004 rendezvous with Saturn, the Hubble Space Telescope continues snapping breathtaking pictures of the solar system's most photogenic planet. This latest view, taken on March 22, 2004, is so sharp that many individual ringlets can be seen...
Callisto
Hubble Spots Rare Triple Eclipse on Jupiter
At first glance, Jupiter looks like it has a mild case of the measles. Five spots - one colored white, one blue, and three black - are scattered across the upper half of the planet. Closer inspection by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals that these spots are actually a rare alignment of...
M 104
The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Light
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat....
NGC 2736
Supernova Shock Wave Paints Cosmic Portrait
Remnants from a star that exploded thousands of years ago created a celestial abstract portrait, as captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Pencil Nebula. Officially known as NGC 2736, the Pencil Nebula is part of the huge Vela supernova remnant, located in the southern...
NGC 3982
Galaxy NGC 3982
A team of European astronomers is using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to look back in time. They have imaged the spiral galaxy NGC 3982 and hundreds of other galaxies in the hope that one of the millions of stars in these images will some day explode as a supernova. They can then look...
Caldwell 24
Freewheeling Galaxies Collide in a Blaze of Star Birth
A dusty spiral galaxy appears to be rotating on edge, like a pinwheel, as it slides through the larger, bright galaxy NGC 1275, in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. These images, taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), show traces of spiral structure accompanied by...
Cassiopeia A
Fireworks in the Sky
Glowing gaseous streamers of red, white, and blue - as well as green and pink - illuminate the heavens like Fourth of July fireworks. The colorful streamers that float across the sky in this photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope were created by the universe's biggest firecracker,...
Stephan's Quintet
Star Clusters Born in the Wreckage of Cosmic Collisions
This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the group of galaxies called Stephan's Quintet has provided a detailed view of one of the most exciting star forming regions in the local Universe. Stephan's Quintet is a favoured object for amateur astronomers and has earned a...
NGC 6782
Hubble Reveals Ultraviolet Galactic Ring
The appearance of a galaxy can depend strongly on the colour of the light with which it is viewed. This Hubble Heritage image of NGC 6782 illustrates a pronounced example of this effect. This spiral galaxy, when seen in visible light, exhibits tightly wound spiral arms that give it a pinwheel...
NGC 5139
Peering into the Core of a Globular Cluster
Astronomers have used NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to peer into the centre of a dense swarm of stars called Omega Centauri. Located some 17, 000 light-years from Earth, Omega Centauri is a massive globular star cluster, containing several million stars swirling in locked orbits around a...
Saturn
Saturn on November 2000
Saturn is about 75, 000 miles (120, 000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate colour variations in the clouds are...
Saturn
Saturn on October 1998
Saturn is about 75, 000 miles (120, 000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate colour variations in the clouds are...
Saturn
Saturn on October 1996
Saturn is about 75, 000 miles (120, 000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate colour variations in the clouds are...
NGC 6251
Galaxy NGC 6251 Nucleus
This composite image of the core of the galaxy was constructed by combining a visible light image taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), with a separate image taken in ultraviolet light with the Faint Object Camera (FOC). While the visible light image shows a dark dust disk,...
Mayall II
Globular Cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy
Hubble Space Telescope has captured a view of a globular cluster called G1, a large, bright ball of light in the centre of the photograph consisting of at least 300, 000 old stars.
Messier 42
Starbirth
This picture, an assembly of individual images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows young stars at the center the Orion nebula. The seemingly infinite tapestry of rich detail revealed by Hubble shows a churning turbulent star factory set within a maelstrom of flowing, luminescent gas....
Coma Cluster
NGC 4881
This photo mosaic, which shows a field of distant galaxies, is a computer enhanced reproduction of a picture taken 4 March 1994 with the repaired Hubble Space Telescope. It combines 16 exposures of 15 minutes each, taken through two filters (F555W and F814W) with the Wide Field Planetary Camera...
