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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...
UGC 11861
A super(nova) spiral
Resting near the centre of the northerly constellation Cepheus, high in the northern sky, is the barred spiral galaxy UGC 11861, the subject of the latest Hubble Picture of the Week. UGC 11861 is located 69 million light-years away from Earth — which may seem a vast distance, but it’s just...
NGC 1316
Brightness decline of Nova in NGC 1316
This composite image shows the blue images (B-filter) obtained in January 9 (upper left), 12 (upper right), 15 (lower left) and 19 (lower right), 2000, respectively. The decline of the brightness of the objects is obvious.
NGC 1316
Brightness decline of Nova in NGC 1316
This composite image shows the blue images (B-filter) obtained in January 9 (upper left), 12 (upper right), 15 (lower left) and 19 (lower right), 2000, respectively. The decline of the brightness of the objects is obvious.
HM Sge
Symbiotic Star Mira HM Sge
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the symbiotic star Mira HM Sge. Located 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta, it consists of a red giant and a white dwarf companion. The stars are too close together to be resolved by Hubble. Material bleeds off the red giant and falls onto the...
HM Sagittae
Artist’s Concept of Nova System HM Sagittae
This artist’s concept shows the nova system HM Sagittae (HM Sge), where a white dwarf star is pulling material from its red giant companion. This forms a blazing hot disk around the dwarf, which can unpredictably undergo a spontaneous thermonuclear explosion as the infall of hydrogen from the...
HM Sge
Symbiotic star Mira HM Sge
This is a NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the symbiotic star Mira HM Sge. Located 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta, it consists of a red giant and a white dwarf companion. The stars are too close together to be resolved by Hubble. Material bleeds off the red giant...
V445 Puppis
Around the nova V445 Puppis annotated
This wide-field image, based on data from Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the whole region around the nova V445 Puppis, with the double star system highlighted.
V445 Puppis
The expanding shell around V445 Puppis
Using the NACO adaptive optics instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope and its ability to obtain images as sharp as if taken from space, astronomers have made the first time-lapse movie of a bipolar shell ejected by a “vampire star”, which underwent an outburst after gulping down part of its...
V445 Puppis
Around the nova V445 Puppis
This wide-field image, based on data from Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the whole region around the nova V445 Puppis.
Nova Centauri 2013
The sky around the location of Nova Centauri 2013
This image shows the sky around the location of Nova Centauri 2013. The nova itself appears, in its pre-outburst state, as a faint star at the centre of the picture, very similar to thousands of others. This picture was created from images in the Digitized Sky Survey 2 that were acquired...
Nova Vulpeculae 1670
The remnant of the new star of 1670 seen with modern instruments
This picture shows the remains of the new star that was seen in the year 1670. It was created from a combination of visible-light images from the Gemini telescope (blue), a submillimetre map showing the dust from the SMA (yellow) and finally a map of the molecular emission from APEX and the SMA...
Nova Centauri 2013
Nova Centauri 2013
This image from the New Technology Telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory shows Nova Centauri 2013 in July 2015 as the brightest star in the centre of the picture. This was more than eighteen months after the initial explosive outburst. This nova was the first in which evidence of lithium has...
Nova Vulpeculae 1670
Wide-field view of the sky around Nova Vul 1670
This wide-field view shows the sky around the location of the historical exploding star Nova Vul 1670. The remains of the nova are only very faintly visible at the centre of this picture. New observations made with APEX and other telescopes have now revealed that the star that European...
CK Vulpeculae
Through the Hourglass
This object is possibly the oldest of its kind ever catalogued: the hourglass-shaped remnant named CK Vulpeculae. Originally thought to be a nova, classifying this unusually shaped object correctly has proven challenging over the years. A number of possible explanations for its origins have...
White dwarf resurrection
The bright star in the centre of this image is not the star of this show. At the bottom centre is a rather unremarkable smudge of red which is in fact a rare and valuable object. First discovered by amateur Japanese astronomer, Yukio Sakurai, in 1996, and noted as a nova-like object, Sakurai’s...
Z Camelopardalis
Ghostly Remnant of an Explosive Past
This enhanced image from the far-ultraviolet detector on NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a ghostly shell of ionized gas around Z Camelopardalis, a binary, or double-star system featuring a collapsed, dead star known as a white dwarf, and a companion star.
Z Camelopardalis
Scene of Multiple Explosions
This composite image shows Z Camelopardalis, or Z Cam, a double-star system featuring a collapsed, dead star, called a white dwarf, and a companion star, as well as a ghostly shell around the system. The massive shell provides evidence of lingering material ejected during and swept up by a...
M80
Globular Cluster M80: A Swarm of Ancient Stars in the Milky Way
This stellar swarm is M80 (NGC 6093), one of the densest of the 147 known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Located about 28,000 light-years from Earth, M80 contains hundreds of thousands of stars, all held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. Globular clusters...
Nova Cygni 1992
Nova Cygni 1992
A 1994 Hubble Space Telescope image of Nova Cygni 1992 after COSTAR.
Nova Cygni 1992
Nova Cygni 1992
A 1994 Hubble Space Telescope image of Nova Cygni 1992 Before COSTAR.
Nova Cygni 1992
Gas Shell Around Nova Cygni
A NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HS1) image of a tepidly ballooning bubble of gas blasted off a star. The shell surrounds Nova Cygni 1992 which erupted on February 19, 1992. The shell is so young it still contains a record of the initial conditions of the explosion. The HST image was taken in...
R-Aquarii
HST Image of R Aquarii
This is the first picture taken by HST of a recent nova, the star system R Aquarii. The two dark knots at the center of the image probably contain the binary star system itself, which consists of a red giant and white dwarf star. The knots are dark due to saturation effects produced by the...
M14
Globular Star Cluster M14
This pair of images of a region in the globular star cluster M14, (located 70,000 light-years away) clearly demonstrate the high spatial resolution of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, as compared to the view from a ground-based telescope. The image on the left, taken with the 4-meter telescope...
De Stella Nova
Kepler's "De Stella Nova" (1606) Title Page
Johannes Kepler documented the explosion of a supernova in 1604, which he documented in this book, "De Stella Nova" (Prague, 1606)
De Stella Nova
Kepler's "De Stella Nova" (1606)
Johannes Kepler documented the explosion of a supernova in 1604, which he documented in this book, "De Stella Nova" (Prague, 1606)
M 99
A bright spark in a nearby spiral galaxy
This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a detailed view of the spiral arms on one side of the galaxy Messier 99. Messier 99 is a so-called grand design spiral, with long, large and clearly defined spiral arms giving it a structure somewhat similar to the Milky Way....
RS Puppis
Wide-field image of RS Puppis (ground-based image)
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows variable star RS Puppis and its surroundings. This field is rich in intriguing astronomical objects. RS Pup is the bright star right in the centre of the frame. It is a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. As variable stars go,...
Nova Cygni 1992
Nova Cygni 1992
This new HST image reveals an elliptical and slightly lumpy ring-like structure. The ring is the edge of a bubble of hot gas blasted into space by the nova. The shell is so thin that the FOC does not resolve its true thickness, even with HST's restored vision.
Nova Cygni 1992
Nova Cygni 1992
An HST image taken on May 31 1993, 467 days after the explosion, provided the first glimpse of the ring and a mysterious bar-like structure. But the image interpretation was severely hampered by HST's optical aberration, that scattered light from the central star which contaminated the ring's...
Centaurus A
VLA 6cm (radio) 1988
The elliptical galaxy Centaurus A, also known as NGC 5128, is well known for its dramatic dusty lanes of dark material and its central supermassive black hole, which ejects material with a relativistic speed from the nucelus of the galaxy. This image shows, that, whereas the main part of the...
T Pyxidis
Recurring Nova T Pyxidis
Closer inspection by the Hubble Space Telescope, however, reveals that the shells are not smooth at all. In fact, this high-resolution image shows that the shells are actually more than 2, 000 gaseous blobs packed into an area that is 1 light-year across. Resembling shrapnel from a shotgun...
T Pyxidis
Recurring Nova T Pyxidis
This image, taken by a ground-based telescope, shows shells of gas around the star that were blown off during several eruptions.
Nova Cygni 1992
Hubble sees gas shell around Nova Cygni 1992
A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HS1) image of a tepidly ballooning bubble of gas blasted off a star. The shell surrounds Nova Cygni 1992 which erupted on February 19, 1992. The shell is so young it still contains a record of the initial conditions of the explosion. The HST image was taken in...
CK Vulpeculae
Artist Impession of CK Vul
Artist impression of the collision of two stars, like the ones that formed CK Vul. The inset illustrates the inner structure of one red giant before the merger. A thin layer of 26-aluminum (brown) surrounds a helium core. An extended convective envelope (not to scale), which forms the outermost...
CK Vulpeculae
First detection of Aluminium Nuclear Isotope in Space.
Composite image of CK Vul, the remains of a double-star collision. This impact launched radioactive molecules into space, as seen in the orange double-lobe structure at the center. This is an ALMA image of 27-aluminum monofluoride, but the rare isotopic version of AlF resides in the same region....
CK Vulpeculae
Pair of Colliding Stars Spill Radioactive Molecules into Space
A widefield, composite image of CK Vul, the remains of a double-star collision. This impact launched radioactive molecules into space, as seen in the orange double-lobe structure at the center. This is an ALMA image of 27-aluminum monofluoride, but the rare, radioactive isotopic version of AlF...
Nova Aquilae
Chandra Discovers Eruption and Pulsation in Nova Outburst
The artist's illustration depicts a classical nova binary system just before an explosion on the surface of the white dwarf.
GRB 020813
Cosmic Forensics Confirms Gamma-ray Burst/Supernova Connection
A Gamma-Ray Burst about 8,600,000 light years from Earth.
GK Persei
"Mini Supernova" Explosion Could Have Big Impact
A stellar explosion, called a nova, which is about 1,500 light years from Earth.
