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Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to assemble a comprehensive picture of the evolving universe.
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On a black background is a smattering of light sources like confetti on the floor after a party. Some appear as small dots in the background in blue, white, yellow, and red. Some are larger with spiral structures or are ovals and circles. A few large white spots have orange halos, and appear larger than the rest. There’s one bright white spot with spikes of light, which is a relatively nearby star on this sea of distant galaxies.
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Algo extraño y misterioso se arrastra por el cosmos. Los científicos lo llaman materia oscura.
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Una red luminosa es visible en el cielo nocturno más allá del límite de un bosque. Dispersa entre los nodos de la red está la oscuridad, que denota la presencia de materia oscura. En el centro de la telaraña, la oscuridad se funde para crear la forma de una araña.
Materia Oscura – "Galaxy of Horrors" póster (En Español)
NASA's Spitzer captured this mosaic image of the Cepheus C and Cepheus B regions in the constellation Cepheus.
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Two cloudy nebula appear in this image, each in shades of green, yellow and red. One appears to blast across the image from the lower left just about to the top of the image just the right of center. At the top end the nebua had a bright white spot with a red halo, and trailing behind to the lower left of the image is a semi-transparent green cloud looking like a dress trailing behind. Taking up the lower right portion of the image is a compact green bundle of clouds, with just a thin strip of black sky between the two nebulae.
Cepheus C & Cepheus B
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission captured this mosaic of the Heart and Soul nebulae.
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A starry background is covered by green clouds of material. There are two reddish bubbles, each surrounded by a thin tendril of pale green light, one lies at the lower left of the image, the other in the center right.
WISE Sees the Heart and Soul Nebulae
This image captured by NASA's SOFIA shows narrow structures channeling material into the Serpens South star cluster.
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This view of a starry sky is bathed in red cloud-like structures. There is a bright grouping of stars just above and to the left of center in the image. These stars are bright white with large diffraction spikes, long lines like an asterisk over each star. The background changes to an electric green behind the concentration of stars. Lines in the image show where magnetic fields run. They run left to right over the main grouping of stars, but gradually change to be tilted from bottom left up to the right just below the grouping of stars.
Magnetic ‘Rivers' Feed Young Stars
In this photo, NICER’s X-ray concentrator optics are inspected under a black light for dust and foreign object debris.
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Taking up the center of the photo is one of NICER’s X-ray concentrators which is formed from concentric cylindrical mirrors that look like a vinyl record with very deep grooves. On top of the concentrator is a metal structure with a hexagonal plate in the center that has thin bars extending from each of the six corners, looking like a spiderweb. This one concentrator is surrounded by five others, which are only partially seen. Along the top quarter of the image is a clear window that reflects rectangular light and has a series of small holds in a grid across the bottom edge. Some parts of the central concentrator and the one to the upper right of it are bathed in purple light.
Close-up View of NICER's X-Ray Optics
This illustration explains the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces in the universe.
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This infographic is done mostly in shades of blue. At the top left is the title: "Electromagnetic Force." Below that is a block of text that reads: "The electromagnetic force holds together objects with opposite electrical charges, like the proton and electron that make up one hydrogen atom." Below and to the right of the text is an illustration of a hydrogen atom. A blue circle representing a proton sits in the middle of a larger, transparent white circle. A yellow electron is orbiting the proton, illustrated by a streak of yellow trailing the proton across the top of the white circle.
Electromagnetic Force
NASA's Chandra captured this image of a beautiful X-ray nebula.
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A supernova remnant rises like an ethereal blue hand across the center of the image. This blue hand-shaped nebula intersects a spotty red oval with dots of light. These both represent X-ray views of the nebula, with the highest energy X-rays shown in blue, and the lower energy in red.
Pulsar PSR B1509-58 Shows its Hand
A NASA Chandra panorama provides an X-ray view above and below the center of the Milky Way.
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This vertical panoramic image depicts an area about the center of the Milky Way, with the field of view extending 1000 light years above and below the galaxy. The image resembles colorful gas clouds streaked with fine threads, dotted with a handful of brilliant white shapes. Throughout the image are tiny orange and purple dots set against a black backdrop. Across the center of the image is a horizontal, bright purple cloud with a glowing white core. This is the plane of the Milky Way, the disk where most of the Galaxy's stars reside. Below the plane of the Milky Way, near our lower left, is a bright, brick orange cloud. Above the plane, to our upper right, is a thin lilac cloud with some orange mist on the left. The orange cloud and mist are large plumes of hot gas. The colors represent different X-ray energies observed by Chandra. Even brighter than the glowing white core in the Milky Way are the brilliant white shapes that appear throughout the image. Two can be found to the right of the core, and two below the galaxy's plane. These are X-rays reflected from dust around bright X-ray sources.
Galactic Center Panorama in X-ray and Radio
These doomed worlds were among the first and creepiest to be discovered as they orbit an undead star known as a pulsar.
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A poster done in the style of movie posters from the 1950s and 1960s showing the zombie worlds with a colorful nebula and a planet being blasted by twin beams of radiation by the pulsar host star. The overall image creates the look of a scary skull.
Zombie Worlds – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
Este planeta lejano puede parecer un refugio amigable… ¡pero no te dejes engañar! ¡El clima en este mundo es mortal!
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Este planeta lejano puede parecer un refugio amigable… ¡pero no te dejes engañar! ¡El clima en este mundo es mortal! ¡El color azul cobalto del planeta proviene de una atmósfera brumosa e incendiaria que contiene nubes de cristales de vidrio! ¡Sus vientos aulladores envían las tormentas de vidrio a 5,400 MPH (2 km / s), azotando todo a su paso en una espiral espeluznante alrededor del planeta! ¡Es la muerte por un millón de cortes en este planeta slasher!
Lluvia de Terror – "Galaxy of Horrors" póster (En Español)
This image shows the entire gamma-ray sky using 12 years of data from NASA's Fermi.
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This image shows the sky as you would see it in gamma-ray light. It is an oval, which represents the sky folded out onto a flat surface. The oval is primarily blue, showing a background of gamma-rays that permeates the entire sky. A bright band in shades of yellow, orange, and red goes across the center of the image from left to right, which shows gamma rays from the plane of the Milky Way. There are dots of yellow and red throughout the rest of the image, indicating distant galaxies that emit gamma rays.
Fermi's 12-year View of the Gamma-ray Sky
Flaring, active regions of our Sun are highlighted in this image combining observations from several telescopes.
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The Sun appears as a red-hued marble with black branching strips and few bright dots in white with small haloes of pale blue and electric green. All around the edge of the Sun is a glow, appearing like short fur in orange, yellow, and two bright spots of white on the right and left sides.
Searing Sun Seen in X-rays
NASA's TESS captured this image of comet C/2018 N1.
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On a gray background a bright ball of light travels across the image from the right side to the left, at a slight angle upward. There are also other small dots sprinkled throughout the image, which mostly remain stationary throughout.
TESS Catches a Comet
NASA's Swift viewed our neighboring galaxy Andromeda in ultraviolet light.
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A patchy cool-blue ring of light surrounds the bright center of the M31 galaxy. The image is dotted with purple, blue and white stars.
Swift's UV Portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy
Astronomers combined several Hubble Space Telescope images to create this view of the Pillars of Creation.
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On a background awash in blue and orange cloudy light stands a darker cloud with three pillars rising from it. The edges of the dark regions glow with white and light-blue light.
Hubble Studies the Pillars of Creation
This map shows the oldest light in our universe, as detected by ESA's Planck mission.
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This image shows an oval that represents the whole sky if you folded it out onto a flat piece of paper. The oval is dotted with many regions ranging from blue, green, yellow and red in color. While the image looks chaotic, the blue regions are nearly always surrounded by green. The yellow are embedded in the green, and red embedded in the yellow. These show temperature differences in the early universe, which ultimately lead us to see where matter clumped together to form the structures we see today.
Best Map Ever of the Universe
Explore this infographic to learn more about SuperTIGER, cosmic rays, and scientific ballooning.
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This infographic shows many factoids about the SuperTIGER balloon mission. The poster has the header: “SuperTIGER Catching heavy cosmic rays.” There is a cut-out line drawing of the SuperTIGER payload as if it was dangling from a balloon. Near this is the text, “SuperTIGER is a souped-up version of the Trans-Iron Galactice Element Recorder (TIGER) detector that flew in 1997, 2001, and 2003.” next to that are a series of representations of cosmic rays from an electron (1% of cosmic rays), hydrogen (90%), helium (8%), and heavier nuclei (1%). Next to that is a periodic table of the elements with the elements from neon (atomic #10) to barium (atomic #56) highlighted. This is accompanied by the text, “Cosmic rays are particles from far outside the solar system traveling at up to nearly the speed of light. SuperTIGER seeks heavy atomic nuclei ranging from neon to barium.” Just below the cosmic ray particles and periodic table is a silhouette of a van accompanying the text, “SuperTIGER and its supporting hardware weighs 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms), comparable to a full-size van.” A drawing of Antarctica with arrows encircling the continent in a counterclockwise direction is accompanied by the text, “SuperTIGER launches from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and can float for weeks. Circular winds aloft confine it to the continent.” Just below these items there is a depiction of the balloon at launch, taking up about two-thirds the height of the poster. The line drawing of the balloon at launch includes the inflated portion of the balloon, which is just a small upside down tear-drop at the top, the recovery parachute, and the SuperTIGER payload. With this is the text, “Balloon at launch, 856 feet (261 meters) tall.” The balloon stands next to a line drawing of the Washington Monument, which stands 555 feet (169 meters) tall. Next to this is a depiction of the balloon in flight, with the balloon fully inflated from the top down to the recovery parachute. The text says: “Balloon at altitude, 460 feet (140 meters) across.” Next to the payload drawing is the text, “SuperTIGER reaches a maximum height of about 127,000 feet (39,000 meters).” Near this is a drawing of a commercial jet and the text, “That’s nearly four times the typical cruising altitude of commercial airliners and above 99.5 percent of the atmosphere.”
SuperTIGER Infographic
AU Microscopii is one of the youngest planetary systems ever observed, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums!
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Giant flares from a giant, bright young star in oranges, reds and bright yellow burst from the star, affecting a nearby planet. You can see the planet’s atmosphere being blasted away by the energy.
Flares of Fury – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
The blue dots in this field of galaxies were detected by NASA's NuSTAR.
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On a field of black there are small yellow and red dots spread across the image. About a dozen larger, blue dots are scattered amongst the smaller, paler sources.
A Black Hole 'Choir'
This mosaic of NASA's Swift is created from images of astronomical objects captured by the satellite.
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When taking this image as a whole, it looks like the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a telescope with a central cylindrical body and solar panels on either side. Upon closer inspection, though, the image is made from small individual images of different astronomical objects that were taken by the telescope.
Swift Millionth Image Mosaic
Hubble Space Telescope’s crisp view of Saturn shows multiple banded cloud activity warmed increasingly by direct sunlight.
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The ringed planet Saturn is seen on a stark black background. The round planet has bands of pale yellow, tan, and brown that appear as stripes across its surface, with the brightest and broadest band around the center of the planet and varying sizes of bands moving up to the top. Encircling the planet is a system of rings which are seen in front of the planet with part of the rings hidden behind the back. The rings also have bands of color ranging from pale blue to white and dusty tan with a few black areas showing gaps between the rings.
Hubble Sees Summertime on Saturn
No spaceship will shield you from the blinding destruction of the gamma ray ghouls!
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Two astronauts are standing on an asteroid, watching a pair of neutron stars, or the cores of collapsed stars, collide in the distance. The result of the collision is bright, concentrated beams of light called gamma rays. The gamma ray bursts narrowly miss the astronauts as they shoot outward from the collision.
Gamma Ray Ghouls – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
Our Milky Way galaxy is ablaze with dust in this all-sky map from Planck.
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This oval image represents a view of the entire sky unfolded and laid out flat. Across the middle of the image is a bright yellow line, which is light that was emitted by dust in the plane of the Milky Way. There are additional swirls and loops arising from that line of yellow, making the sky look like it is filled with flames.
Polarized Dust Lights Up Milky Way
This image shows the magnetic field of our Milky Way galaxy as seen by the Planck satellite.
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This oval image represents a view of the entire sky unfolded and laid out flat. Across the middle is a line of dark brown, with a swirl of brown around the center of the image. At the edges the line of brown becomes wider and more diffuse. These lines and swirls of brown are embedded in an off-white mottled background. Throughout the image are lines running generally parallel to the central bar of brown, but with some wave-like deviations above and below it. Some of the oval on the top and near the bottom is just a flat tan color, which represents places where there is no magnetic field information.
Planck Takes Magnetic Fingerprint of Our Galaxy

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The glittering, glitzy contents of the globular cluster NGC 6652 sparkle in this star-studded image.
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The two instruments aboard Euclid, an ESA spacecraft with NASA contributions, have captured their first test images.
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The tranquil spiral galaxy UGC 12295 basks leisurely in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
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The irregular galaxy Arp 263 lurks in the background of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
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Research by scientists from NASA and Osaka University suggests that rogue planets far outnumber planets that orbit stars.
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How Gravity Warps Light
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A new satellite called XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) aims to pry apart high-energy light into the equivalent of an X-ray rainbow.
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XRISM Mission To Study ‘Rainbow' of X-rays
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The spiral galaxy UGC 11860 seems to float serenely against a field of background galaxies in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope.
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