Centaurus A

Milky Way © astrofalls

This winter snow angel is out of this world! The Hubble Space Telescope captured this festive image of the bipolar star-forming region Sharpless 2-106. A massive, young star, IRS 4 is responsible for the furious star birth we see in this nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of the celestial angel.

A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an hourglass shape. Hubble's sharp resolution reveals ripples and ridges in the gas as it interacts with the cooler interstellar medium.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

ALT TEXT: Looking somewhat like an angel with outstretched wings, this blue-and-orange star-forming region is set against a black background punctuated by bright stars of various sizes. Some of the stars are white, while others are orange, and one in the bottom-right corner is bright red. Many of these stars have starburst-like diffraction spikes. The “angel’s” long wings are cavities outlined in a feathery pattern of blue and white. Its flowing, “dress” is a triangular, orange area of denser, dustier gas that trails off into the blackness of space. At its waist is a bright white-and-orange, centrally located star.

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).

NASA selected SpaceX to launch Europa Clipper mission with an expendable Falcon Heavy rocket.

NGC 6543, Cat's Eye

Mystic Mountain

M52: Open Cluster in Cassiopeia © JWST

NGC 7822, Question Mark

Sometimes, another galaxy passes through briefly but changes you forever. That’s the tale being told in this Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy AM 0644-741. Once it was a classic spiral shape, until another galaxy passed directly through it and moved on to parts unknown. The stars, gas, and dust of the spiral arms were disrupted and pushed outward, similar to ripples after a rock has been thrown in a pond. As the ripple of galactic material plows outward into its surroundings, gas clouds collide and are compressed. The clouds can then contract under their own gravity, collapse, and form an abundance of new stars—shown here in bright blue. The core of the galaxy, glowing yellow, remains intact, though not centered. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI. ALT TEXT: An oval-shaped galaxy with a hazy yellow core is surrounded by a ring of bright blue stars. The core is off-center, much closer to the left-hand edge of the outer ring, like the yolk of an egg. One partial arm of stars wraps beneath and to the right of the core. The remainder of space inside the galaxy’s outer ring of stars is filled with dark gas and dust, and occasional stars or star clusters seen as red or yellow dots. The outer ring of blue stars is interspersed with pink and red areas, with some glowing almost white. A scattering of stars appears in the background in blue and red, with some distant galaxies appearing hazy yellow.

A colonized Moon. One day this could be our view from Earth.

via @latestinspace