Crescent Milky Way

Wolf-Rayet Bubble in Cygnus © Yannick Akar

Solar Dynamics Observatory Satellite Saw a Lunar Transit by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Mystic Mountain

NGC 2359 Thor's Helmet ©

ESO 350-40, Cartwheel Galaxy

Melting Cosmic Eyes: WR134 Ring © Craig Stocks

Butterfly nebula

The star or stars at its center are responsible for the nebula's appearance. In their death throes, they have cast off layers of gas periodically over the past couple thousand years. The "wings" of NGC 6302 are regions of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit that are tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour.

NGC 6302 lies between 2,500 and 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT)

Gravitational arcs in ‘El Gordo’ galaxy cluster.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria), B. Frye (University of Arizona), P. Kamieneski (Arizona State University), T. Carleton (Arizona State University), R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), A. Pagan (STScI), J. Summers (Arizona State University), J. D’Silva (University of Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), A. Robotham (University of Western Australia).

New Hubble Observations of Supernova 1987A Trace Shock Wave by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Galaxies

Unimaginably huge collections of gas, dust, stars, and even planets, galaxies come in many shapes and sizes. Some are spirals, such as our own galaxy, others are like squashed balls, and some have no shape at all.

From the book Knowledge Encyclopedia Science! (DK)