Pismis 24 !

The small open star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 in Scorpius, about 8,000 light-years away from Earth.

The brightest object in the picture is designated Pismis 24-1. It was once thought to weigh as much as 200 to 300 solar masses. This would not only have made it by far the most massive known star in the galaxy, but would have put it considerably above the currently believed upper mass limit of about 150 solar masses for individual stars.

However, Hubble Space Telescope high-resolution images of the star show that it is really two stars orbiting one another. They are estimated to each be 100 solar masses.

NASA/ESA/J. Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain)

Pluto !

This image is part of the most detailed set of images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The Hubble images were sharpest view of Pluto until NASA’s New Horizons released a new image and were invaluable for picking out the planet’s most interesting-looking hemisphere for New Horizons to swoop over when it flies by Pluto.

Though Pluto is arguably one of the public’s favorite planetary objects, it is also the hardest of which to get a detailed portrait because the world is small and very far away.

NASA/ESA/M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute)

Sharpless 2-106 !

This nebula, also known as Sh2-106 or S106 for short, lies nearly 2,000 light-years from us. It measures several light-years in length and appears in a relatively isolated region of the Milky Way galaxy.

Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape.

NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

NGC 602 !

This image depicts bright, blue, newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the center of a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

At the heart of the star-forming region, lies star cluster NGC 602. The high-energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars is sculpting the inner edge of the outer portions of the nebula, slowly eroding it away and eating into the material beyond.

The Small Magellanic Cloud, in the constellation Tucana, is roughly 200,000 light-years from the Earth. Its proximity to us makes it an exceptional laboratory to perform in-depth studies of star formation processes and their evolution in an environment slightly different from our own Milky Way.

NASA/ESA/CXC and the University of Potsdam/JPL-Caltech/STScI

SNR 0509 !

A delicate sphere of gas floats in the depths of space. The pristine shell, or bubble, is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova.

Called SNR 0509-67.5 (or SNR 0509 for short), the bubble is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth.

NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Centaurus A !

Also known as NGC 5128, Centaurus A is well known for its dramatic dusty lanes of dark material.

Hubble’s new observations, using its most advanced instrument, the Wide Field Camera 3, are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy. They have been combined here in a multi-wavelength image which reveals never-before-seen detail in the dusty portion of the galaxy.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

Carina Nebula !

This is one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble’s cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - takes place.

The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun.

NASA/ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley)/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The Sombrero Galaxy !

Also known as Messier 104 (M104), the galaxy’s hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy.

The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns.

The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 28 million light-years from Earth.

NASA/The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

“Jupiter’s Eye”

The black spot which simulates a giant eye on the surface of Jupiter was actually just a well-timed shadow, captured by one of Hubble’s cameras as Jupiter’s moon Ganymede passed by the planet’s famed Great Red Spot.

NASA/ESA/A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center)

NGC 7000 Nebula

Credit: Odd-Leadership8334