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 S...
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 2...
VdB 152: A Ghost in Cepheus
Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition," mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 really is very faint. Far f...
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 oth...
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 t...
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 miss...
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 ...
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...
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 perfo...
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 mode...
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...
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 shi...
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...
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 neu...
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 h...
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...
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 paren...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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 m...
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 O...
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 Ea...
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 merg...
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 ...
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 amount...
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...
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...
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. Astronom...
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 ...
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....
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 imag...
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 poin...
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 a...
Tungurahua Volcano Eruption
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...
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...
Tungurahua Volcano Eruption
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...
Planetary Nebula NGC 7009
The spectacular planetary nebula NGC 7009, or the Saturn Nebula, emerges from the darkness like a series of oddly-shaped bubbles, lit up in ...