By combining x-ray, optical, and radio data, astronomers get a full picture of the superheated gas swirling around the black hole at the center of 4C+29.30, a black hole that is thought to be about 100 million times more massive than our Sun. This composite image of a galaxy illustrates how the intense gravity of [...]

This new Hubble images shows galaxy cluster Abell S1077 and is based in part on data spotted by Nick Rose in the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition. Bright arcs are smeared around the heart of galaxy cluster Abell S1077 in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble space telescope. The arcs are stretched images [...]

This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxy 2MASX J05210136-2521450. When we look into the distant cosmos, the great majority of the objects we see are galaxies: immense gatherings of stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter, showing up in all kind of shapes. This Hubble picture registers several, but the galaxy cataloged [...]

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected signs of Earth-like planets in debris whirling around two white dwarfs, finding silicon in the stars’ atmospheres and detecting low levels of carbon. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found signs of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby [...]

This Hubble image shows the remains of a white dwarf supernova known as SNR 0519, which is located over 150,000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Dorado. These delicate wisps of gas make up an object known as SNR B0519-69.0, or SNR 0519 for short. The thin, blood-red shells are actually the remnants [...]

This Hubble image shows the young star PV Cep, which is located in the northern constellation of Cepheus at a distance of over 1600 light-years from Earth. The Universe is rarely static, although the timescales involved can be very long. Since modern astronomical observations began we have been observing the birthplaces of new stars and [...]

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers observed 20 nearby galaxies, some of which were known to be undergoing a starburst, finding that the winds accompanying these star formation processes were capable of ionizing gas up to 650,000 light-years from the galactic center. Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have shown for the first time [...]

Using Hubble, WISE and the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in the French Alps, astronomers viewed efficient star-making galaxy SDSSJ1506+54, seeing a rare phase of evolution that is the most extreme and most efficient yet observed. Astronomers have spotted the “greenest” of galaxies, one that converts fuel into stars with almost 100-percent efficiency. The findings [...]

NASA’s Hubble telescope captured close-up images of Comet ISON in early April, providing scientists with images to measure the activity level of the comet. This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet (C/2012 S1) ISON was photographed on April 10, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter’s orbit at a distance of 386 million [...]

In this image the Hubble Space Telescope shows globular cluster Palomar 2, which is part of a group of 15 globulars known as the Palomar clusters. Palomar 2 is part of a group of 15 globulars known as the Palomar clusters. These clusters, as the name suggests, were discovered in survey plates from the first [...]

This NASA image of the day shows the Horsehead Nebula as captured by Hubble’s high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3. Washington — Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory’s launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on [...]

This new Hubble image shows the dusty details of elliptical galaxy NGC 2768. The soft glow in this image is NGC 2768, an elliptical galaxy located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). NGC 2768 appears here as a bright oval on the sky, surrounded by a wide, fuzzy cloud of material. [...]