The iconic Eagle Nebula's "Pillars of Creation" is seen in this NASA image released Jan. 6, 2015. By comparing 1995 and 2014 pictures, astronomers noticed a lengthening of a narrow jet-like feature that may have been ejected from a newly forming star. Over the intervening 19 years, this jet has stretched farther into space, across an additional 60 billion miles, at an estimated speed of about 450,000 miles per hour, according to a NASA news release.
This image comprises one of the largest mosaics ever assembled from Hubble photos and includes observations taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys released by NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. Several million young stars are vying for attention in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, a star-forming complex located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula.
Star V838 Monocerotis's (V838 Mon) light echo, which is about six light years in diameter, is seen from the Hubble Space Telescope in this photo released by NASA on Dec. 4, 2011. Light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star.
The photo captures a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.
This image captures the tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation Carina.
The planet Jupiter is shown with one of its moons, Ganymede (bottom), in this NASA handout taken April 9, 2007. Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed that the Jupiter-orbiting moon Ganymede has an ocean beneath its icy surface, raising the prospects for life.
This NASA illustration shows an aesthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds, featuring LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow in this image released on Feb. 4, 2013.
A section of the Tarantula Nebula, located within the Large Magellanic Cloud, is seen in an undated NASA image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The LMC is a small nearby galaxy that orbits our galaxy, the Milky Way, and appears as a blurred blob in our skies, according to NASA.
From ground-based telescopes, this cosmic object - the glowing remains of a dying, sun-like star - resembles the head and thorax of a garden-variety ant. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, released on Feb. 1, 2001, of the so-called "ant nebula" (Menzel 3, or Mz3) shows even more detail, revealing the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from the dying star.
A NASA Hubble Space Telescope composite image shows star cluster NGC 2060, a loose collection of stars in 30 Doradus, located in the heart of the Tarantula Nebula 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, in this handout photo released on April 17, 2012.
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