Pumpkin Sun

Active regions on the Sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on October 8, 2014. The image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the Sun at all times from its orbit in space.The active regions in this image appear brighter because those...

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IC 2118: the Witch Head Nebula

As the name implies, this reflection nebula associated with the star Rigel looks suspiciously like a fairytale crone. Formally known as IC 2118 in the constellation Orion, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from the star. The color of this very blue nebula is caused not...

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VdB 152: A Ghost in Cepheus

Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition," mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 really is very faint. Far from your neighborhood on this Halloween Night, the cosmic phantom is nearly 1,400 light-years away. Also catalogued as Ced 201, it lies along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation...

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Fornax Galaxy Cluster

Countless galaxies vie for attention in this monster image of the Fornax Galaxy Cluster, some appearing only as pinpricks of light while others dominate the foreground. One of these is the lenticular galaxy NGC 1316. The turbulent past of this much-studied galaxy has left it with a delicate structure...

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Milky Way Galaxy seen over Auxiliary Telescope

Brilliant blue stars litter the southern sky and the galactic bulge of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, hangs serenely above the horizon in this spectacular shot of ESO’s Paranal Observatory.This image was taken atop Cerro Paranal in Chile, home to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). In the foreground,...

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Saturn seen by Cassini spacecraft

Stunning views like this image of Saturn's night side are only possible thanks to our robotic emissaries like Cassini. Until future missions are sent to Saturn, Cassini's image-rich legacy must suffice.Because Earth is closer to the Sun than Saturn, observers on Earth only see Saturn's day side. With spacecraft,...

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The Moon seen by Galileo spacecraft

During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Moon. The Galileo spacecraft surveyed the Moon on December 7, 1992, on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-1997. The left part of this north pole view is visible from Earth. This color picture is a mosaic...

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Galaxy Cluster WHL J24.3324-8.477

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is chock-full of galaxies — each glowing speck is a different galaxy, bar the bright flash in the middle of the image which is actually a star lying within our own galaxy that just happened to be in the way. At the centre...

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Jupiter, Io and Europa seen by Juno spacecraft

This color-enhanced image of Jupiter and two of its largest moons -- Io and Europa -- was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant planet.The image was taken on Sept. 1, 2017 at 3:14 p.m. PDT (6:14 p.m. EDT). At the...

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Search for Habitable Worlds

New NASA research is helping to refine our understanding of candidate planets beyond our Solar System that might support life.“Using a model that more realistically simulates atmospheric conditions, we discovered a new process that controls the habitability of exoplanets and will guide us in identifying candidates for further study,”...

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Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4993

The elliptical galaxy NGC 4993 is located about 130 million light-years from Earth. On 17 August 2017 the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Interferometer both detected gravitational waves from the collision of two neutron stars within this galaxy. The event also resulted in a flare of...

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Fomalhaut Debris Disk

Fomalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the sky. At roughly 25 light-years away the star lies especially close to us, and can be seen shining brightly in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (The Southern Fish). This image from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows Fomalhaut (centre)...

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An Atmosphere Around the Moon?

Looking up at the Moon at night, Earth’s closest neighbor appears in shades of gray and white; a dry desert in the vacuum of space, inactive and dead for billions of years. Like many things, though, with the Moon, there is so much more than what meets the eye.Research...

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When Neutron Stars Collide

This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from two neutron stars just before they collided. Within this neutron-rich debris, large quantities of some of the universe's heaviest elements were forged, including hundreds of Earth masses of gold and platinum.This represents the first time scientists detected...

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Colliding Galaxies Arp 243

This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows what happens when two galaxies become one. The twisted cosmic knot seen here is NGC 2623 — or Arp 243 — and is located about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab).NGC 2623 gained its...

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Hubble observes source of gravitational waves for the first time

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed for the first time the source of a gravitational wave, created by the merger of two neutron stars. This merger created a kilonova — an object predicted by theory decades ago — that ejects heavy elements such as gold and platinum into...

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Puerto Rico seen from the International Space Station

NASA astronaut Joe Acaba photographed Puerto Rico from the cupola of the International Space Station on October 12, 2017.Acaba, whose parents were both born in Puerto Rico, joined NASA as a member of the 2004 class of astronauts and is on his third mission to the space station as...

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Protoplanetary Disk V1247 Orionis

This image from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows V1247 Orionis, a young, hot star surrounded by a dynamic ring of gas and dust, known as a circumstellar disc. This disc can be seen here in two parts: a clearly defined central ring of matter and a more...

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ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source - Merging neutron stars scatter gold and platinum into space

This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova. Such a very rare event is expected to produce both gravitational waves and a short gamma-ray burst, both of which were observed on 17 August 2017...

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VIMOS image of galaxy NGC 4993 showing the visible-light counterpart to a merging neutron star pair

This image from the VIMOS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is not itself unusual, but it contains something never before witnessed, the aftermath of the explosion of a pair...

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VLT/MUSE image of the galaxy NGC 4993 and associated kilonova

This image from the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is not itself unusual, but it contains something never before witnessed, the aftermath of the explosion of a pair...

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GROND image of kilonova in NGC 4993

Image obtained by ESO's Gamma-ray Burst Optical/Near-infrared Detector (GROND) attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla Observatory.Image Credit: ESO/S. Smartt & T.-W. Chen...

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VST image of kilonova in NGC 4993

This image from the VST telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is not itself unusual, but it contains something never before witnessed, the aftermath of the explosion of a pair of merging neutron stars, a...

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The sky around the galaxy NGC 4993

This wide-field image generated from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 shows the sky around the galaxy NGC 4993. This galaxy was the host to a merger between two neutron stars, which led to a gravitational wave detection, a short gamma-ray burst and an optical identification of a kilonova event.Image...

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Smoke from California wildfires seen by Sentinel-3A satellite

The Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite captured this image of smoke from wildfires in the US state of California on 9 October 2017.Wildfires broke out in parts of the state on 8 October 2017 around Napa Valley, and the smoke was spread by strong northeasterly winds.Image Credit: ESA...

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Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8

At a distance of about 20,000 light years, G292.0+1.8 is one of only three supernova remnants in the Milky Way known to contain large amounts of oxygen. These oxygen-rich supernovas are of great interest to astronomers because they are one of the primary sources of the heavy elements (that...

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Dual Supermassive Black Holes

This illustration depicts two centrally located supermassive black holes surrounded by disks of hot gas. The black holes orbit each other for hundreds of millions of years before they merge to form a single supermassive black hole that sends out intense gravitational waves.Five new pairs of merging supermassive black...

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Emission Nebula NGC 6357

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 II...

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Dwarf Galaxy ESO 553-46

As far as galaxies are concerned, size can be deceptive. Some of the largest galaxies in the Universe are dormant, while some dwarf galaxies, such as ESO 553-46 imaged here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, can produce stars at a hair-raising rate. In fact, ESO 553-46 has one...

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Dusty Ring around Boyajians Star

This illustration depicts a hypothetical uneven ring of dust orbitingKIC 8462852, also known as Boyajians Star or Tabby's Star. Astronomers have found the dimming of the star over long periods appears to be weaker at longer infrared wavelengths of light and stronger at shorter ultraviolet wavelengths. Such reddening is...

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4LGSF on UT4 of the VLT at ESO's Paranal Observatory

The 4 Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF), a new subsystem of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) on UT4 of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The facility saw first light in April 2016 and is the most powerful laser guide star system in the...

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Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy in the Infrared

This vibrant image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.The infrared image, a mosaic of 300,000 individual tiles, offers astronomers a unique chance to study the lifecycle of stars and dust in a single galaxy. Nearly one...

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Jupiter seen by NASA's Juno spacecraft

This striking image of Jupiter was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant planet.The image was taken on September 1, 2017 at 2:58 p.m. PDT (5:58 p.m. EDT). At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 4,707 miles (7,576...

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Aurora over Canada seen from the International Space Station

The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the International Space Station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. This photograph was taken by a member of the Expedition 53 crew aboard...

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Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS)

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a fuzzy cloud of dust, called a coma, surrounding the comet C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS (K2), the farthest active comet ever observed entering the solar system. Hubble snapped images of K2 when the frozen visitor was over 2.4 billion kilometres from the Sun, just...

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Spiral Galaxy NGC 6753

Despite the advances made in past decades, the process of galaxy formation remains an open question in astronomy. Various theories have been suggested, but since galaxies come in all shapes and sizes — including elliptical, spiral, and irregular — no single theory has so far been able to satisfactorily...

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Tungurahua Volcano Eruption

Tungurahua, EcuadorImage Credit: Sebastián Crespo...

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Spiral Galaxy NGC 1964

This spectacular spiral galaxy, known as NGC 1964, resides approximately 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Lepus (The Hare). NGC 1964 has a bright and dense core. This core sits within a mottled oval disc, which is itself encircled by distinct spiral arms speckled with bright starry...

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Star-Forming Regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

At a distance of just 160 000 light-years, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is one of the Milky Way’s closest companions. It is also home to one of the largest and most intense regions of active star formation known to exist anywhere in our galactic neighbourhood — the Tarantula...

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Tungurahua Volcano Eruption

Tungurahua, EcuadorImage Credit: Per-Andre Hoffmann...

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Spiral Galaxy NGC 4490

This oddly-shaped galactic spectacle is bursting with brand new stars. The pink fireworks in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are regions of intense star formation, triggered by a cosmic-scale collision. The huge galaxy in this image, NGC 4490, has a smaller galaxy in its gravitational...

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