Tarantula Nebula
A giant tarantula creeps through a nearby galaxy. It’s the galaxy’s brightest feature and the most impressive stellar nursery in…
Double Blast
Expanding bubbles of hot gas are all that remains of a star that appears to have exploded twice, according to…
Messier 5
The giant star cluster Messier 5 is at least 12 billion years old, making it one of the oldest structures…
Cygnus X-3
A bright disk of gas encircles a black hole in this illustration of the star system Cygnus X-3. The gas…
Greenwich Observatory
The Royal Greenwich Observatory overlooks the Thames Valley in this painting from ca. 1696. The observatory was established by decree…
Barnard’s Planets
An artist’s concept depicts a possible view from one of the four recently discovered planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, one of…
Messier 81
Messier 81 is a ‘grand design’ spiral galaxy, indicating that it has a well-defined spherical core encircled by almost perfect…
Saturn’s Divided Rings
Saturn’s rings encircle the giant planet in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. A dark gap in the ring system…
Rubin Observatory
Stars trail above the Vera Rubin Observatory, in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The observatory, which will repeatedly map the…
Gemini IV
Gemini IV astronaut Ed White floats outside his spacecraft during the first American spacewalk, on June 3, 1965. [NASA]