Bubble Nebula By Hubble Heritage Via Flickr: For The 26th Birthday Of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope,

Hubble views a spectacular supernova with interstellar material over 160,000 light-years away by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the remnants of a long-dead star. These rippling wisps of ionized gas, named DEM L316A, are located some 160,000 light-years away within one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbors — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The explosion that formed DEM L316A was an example of an especially energetic and bright variety of supernova, known as a Type Ia. Such supernova events are thought to occur when a white dwarf star steals more material than it can handle from a nearby companion, and becomes unbalanced. The result is a spectacular release of energy in the form of a bright, violent explosion, which ejects the star’s outer layers into the surrounding space at immense speeds. As this expelled gas travels through the interstellar material, it heats up and ionizes it, producing the faint glow that Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured here. The LMC orbits the Milky Way as a satellite galaxy and is the fourth largest in our group of galaxies, the Local Group. DEM L316A is not the only supernova remnant in the LMC; Hubble came across another one in 2010 with SNR 0509, and in 2013 it snapped SNR 0519. Image credit: ESA (European Space Agency)/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu

NGC 3576, an emission nebula in the constellation of Carina 6,000 light years away. -image via paulhaese.net

Galaxy Trio Arp 286:

NGC 5566 (bottom), NGC 5569 (left), & NGC 5560 (center)

150,000 Stars - The Messier 2 Star Cluster

This massive Star Cluster (The Messier 2 Star Cluster) is 13 billion years old - making it one of the oldest star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. Not only is this Star Cluster ancient, it is one of the largest known star clusters. On a clear night away from light pollution, you can see M2 with the naked eye as a faint blur in the constellation Aquarius.

Credit: NASA/Hubble/SIMBAD Astronomy db

Island Point Milky Way

Nikon d5100 - 6 x 25s - ISO 4000 - f2.8 - 16mm

What forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula? The dark ominous figures are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque. In comparison, however, these clouds are typically much less dense than Earth’s atmosphere. Featured here is a detailed image of the core of the Carina Nebula, a part where both dark and colorful clouds of gas and dust are particularly prominent. The image was captured last month from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Although the nebula is predominantly composed of hydrogen gas – here colored green, the image was assigned colors so that light emitted by trace amounts of sulfur and oxygen appear red and blue, respectively. The entire Carina Nebula, cataloged as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically.

Object Names: Carina Nebula

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: John Ebersole

Time And Space

Andromeda glowing in infrared.

PLUTO 2015

NASA