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Caption: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. Known as the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team
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Caption: This new image of the rose-colored star forming region Messier 17 was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It is one of the sharpest images showing the entire nebula. It not only reveals its full size but also retains fine detail throughout the cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars. ESO
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Caption: Astronomers identify a medium-sized black hole in the central region of galaxy NGC1313. NGC1313 is 50,000 light-years across and lies about 14 million light-years from the Milky Way in the southern constellation Reticulum. ESO
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Caption: A color composite of the Omega Nebula (M 17) made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The field of view is approximately 4.7 x 3.7 degrees. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
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Caption: ASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, stellar winds flowing out from the fast-moving star Zeta Ophiuchi are creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads, which, for this star, are only seen in infrared light. NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Caption: Look closely and you just might see Saturn’s moons, hidden in the planet’s rings. Prometheus (53 miles or 86 kilometers across) and Pandora (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) orbit along side Saturn’s narrow F ring, which is shaped, in part, by their gravitational influences. Their proximity to the rings also means that they often lie on the same line of sight as the rings, sometimes making them difficult to spot. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Caption: A prominent lobate fault scarp in the Vitello Cluster is one of thousands discovered in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images (LROC). Topography derived from the LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) stereo images shows a degraded crater has been uplift as the fault scarp has formed (blues are lower elevations and reds are higher elevations). NASA/LRO/Arizona State University/Smithsonian Institution
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Caption: The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy, pictured in a new image from the Wide Field Imager camera, installed on the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, is a close neighbor of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Despite their proximity, both galaxies have very distinct histories and characters. This galaxy is much smaller, fainter and older than the Milky Way and appears here as a cloud of faint stars filling most of the picture. ESO
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Caption: Majestic Mountains and Frozen Plains: Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of the informally named Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) high, including the informally named Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. The backlighting highlights more than a dozen layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous but distended atmosphere. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
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Caption: NGC 3921 — found in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) — is an interacting pair of disk galaxies in the late stages of its merger. Observations show that both of the galaxies involved were about the same mass and collided about 700 million years ago. You can see clearly in this image the disturbed morphology, tails and loops characteristic of a post-merger. ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
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Caption: On Sept. 17, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured images and video from the International Space Station during an early morning flyover of the United States. NASA
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Caption: This image of the sky around the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy was created from pictures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The galaxy appears as a small faint cloud close to the centre of the picture. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
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Caption: The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower. So the nickname for this cosmic object — the Sunflower Galaxy — is no coincidence. Galactic arms, sunflowers and whirlpools are only a few examples of nature’s apparent preference for spirals. For galaxies like Messier 63 the winding arms shine bright because of the presence of recently formed, blue–white giant stars and clusters, readily seen in this Hubble image. ESA/Hubble & NASA
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Caption: This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto’s equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum. The entire expanse of terrain seen in this image is 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) across. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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Caption: Astronomers have discovered a rare beast of a galaxy cluster whose heart is bursting with new stars. The unexpected find, made with the help of NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, suggests that behemoth galaxies at the cores of these massive clusters can grow significantly by feeding on gas stolen from other galaxies. The cluster in the new study, referred to by astronomers as SpARCS1049+56, has at least 27 galaxy members, and a combined mass equal to nearly 400 trillion suns. NASA, ESA, STScI, JPL-Caltech, and T. Webb (McGill University)
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Caption: This five-frame sequence of images from the New Horizons spacecraft captures the giant plume from Io’s Tvashtar volcano. NASA/JHU Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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Caption: Petrified sand dunes captured by the Mars Curiosity rover. Large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone of this ridge on a lower slope of Mars’ Mount Sharp is typical of windblown sand dunes that have petrified. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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Caption: This image, made using images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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Caption: Why does Saturn look like it’s been painted with a dark brush in this infrared image, but Dione looks untouched? Perhaps an artist with very specific tastes in palettes? The answer is methane. This image was taken in a wavelength that is absorbed by methane. Dark areas seen here on Saturn are regions with thicker clouds, where light has to travel through more methane on its way into and back out of the atmosphere. Since Dione (698 miles or 1,123 kilometers across) doesn’t have an atmosphere rich in methane the way Saturn does, it does not experience similar absorption — the sunlight simply bounces off its icy surface. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Caption: The Prawn Nebula is one of constant “cosmic recycling.” It’s been a hotbed for star production over millions of years because of the many aging stars and supernova explosions that keep new stars forming. ESO
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Caption: A photo of Mars’ Nili Fossae plains, the largest deposit of carbonate minerals on the planet. Scientists analyzed this spot and learned the planet’s atmosphere would have had to have double the amount of carbon that it does today. NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/Univ. of Arizona
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Caption: Messier 96 is a bit out of whack. The gorgeous spiral galaxy’s core isn’t quite centered, and the spiral arms asymmetrically spread out from the pull of other nearby galaxies in the M96 Group. Messier 96 is the same size of the Milky Way and some 35 million light-years away. ESA/Hubble & NASA and the LEGUS Team, Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
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Caption: Hubble has taken 2,753 images of blue star clusters in the Andromeda galaxy in order to learn about star formation. This photo is a combination of 414 images showing a multitude of stars and star clusters as bright blue bunches. Scientists are using the image to determine the Initial Mass Function (IMF), the percentage of stars that have a specific mass within a cluster. : NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), and the PHAT team
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Caption: This photo is a close up of six clusters extracted from the previous image, each one 150 light-years across. Through the study, astronomers have learned the universe produces stars in steady batches from large to small. It’s the same throughout the galaxy regardless of the varying size and age. : NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), and the PHAT team
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Caption: New Horizons has returned another close-up of Pluto, showing young mountains rising some 11,000 feet. It’s been dubbed the Norgay Mountains and was shot during the spacecraft’s closest approach to the dwarf planet. Even more detailed images are to come on September 5. NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI
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Caption: The Twin Jet Nebula has beautiful, illuminated “wings” of gas caused by the last stages of an old star “of low to intermediate mass.” The star’s outer layers are gone, leaving the core exposed and glowing. The Twin Jet Nebula is a bipolar nebula, meaning it contains two stars. Astronomers believe this is the reason for the distinctive wing shape as the dying stars expel gases. ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
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Caption: Astronomers discovered a “radio phoenix.” They believe two galaxy clusters collided, causing faded electron clouds to come back to life, bursting with radio frequencies. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Hamburg
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Caption: Hubble snapped this photo of the globular cluster NGC 1783, one of the biggest in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A globular cluster is where stars are densely held together by their own gravity. Astronomers measure the color and brightness of each star and predict the age of a cluster. NGC 1783 is fairly young at only 1.5 billion years old and has already had two different periods of star formation. ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
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Caption: Photo of a mid-level solar flare on the sun as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The flare–the bright spot in the lower portion of the sun–is actually an explosion of radiation. This flare is a M 5.6 class flare, only a tenth the size of the most intense flares. NASA/SDO mid-level solar flare.
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Caption: The Dawn spacecraft gets an upclose shot of Ceres, a dwarf planet that lies between Jupiter and Mars. The photo reveals a tall, cone-shaped mountain as well as interesting details of the planet’s terrain. Dawn is taking 11 days to take images of Ceres’ entire surface. It will do it six times in the next two months. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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Caption: The Hubble captured a gorgeous cosmic couple that is the star Hen 2-427 and the nebula M1-67 some 15,000 light-years from Earth. The bright center is Hen 2-427, a Wolf-Rayet star known for its intense heat and explosions. The colorful gases surrounding are the nebula M1-67. At barely 10,000 years old, they make the perfect pair and a stunning sight. ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
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Caption: The Curiosity Mars Rover takes a “low-angle self-portrait” on a rock target called “Buckskin,” where it was drilling for samples. The rover created created the portrait from multiple images snapped by a camera mounted on its robotic arm. August 5 was the rover’s 1,065th Martian day. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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Caption: This is star forming region is NGC 2174, nicknamed the “Monkey Head” for certain clouds that supposedly resemble a monkey face when seen in visible light. This infrared image makes the monkey disappear, but allows scientists to see the beginnings of new clusters of stars that will be born over the next 1,000 years. The red lights are actually infant stars surrounded by warm dust. These processes could not be seen with the naked eye, but only made possible through infrared. NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Caption: An up-close shot of Dione, Saturn’s icy moon. The Cassini spacecraft captured the moon at its best resolution ever, passing 295 miles above the surface. The dark gray background is actually Saturn looming just behind the moon, its rings barely visible. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Caption: An even closer look at Dione. The image on the left was snapped near the day-night boundary of the moon. Cassini was able to get an even closer image featured right, the highest-resolution view of Dione’s icy surface. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Caption: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly takes a photo from the International Space Station of the aurora over Earth on August 15, 2015. NASA
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