The Bubble Nebula
4.08.2012

Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape. Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work.

The Seagull and The Duck
16.03.2018

Seen as a seagull and a duck, these nebulae are not the only cosmic clouds to evoke images of flight. But both are winging their way across this broad celestial landscape, spanning almost 7 degrees across planet Earth's night sky toward the constellation Canis Major.

Inside the Eagle Nebula
3.02.2012

In 1995, a now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This remarkable false-color composite image revisits the nearby stellar nursery with image data from the orbiting Herschel Space Observatory and XMM-Newton telescopes.

The Fox Fur Nebula from CFHT
22.04.2008

This interstellar beast is formed of cosmic dust and gas interacting with the energetic light and winds from hot young stars. The shape, visual texture, and color, combine to give the region the popular name Fox Fur Nebula.

Horsehead: A Wider View
9.03.2018

Combined image data from the massive, ground-based VISTA telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope was used to create this wide perspective of the interstellar landscape surrounding the famous Horsehead Nebula. Captured at near-infrared wavelengths...

Horsehead: A Wider View
3.05.2013

Combined image data from the massive, ground-based VISTA telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope was used to create this wide perspective of the interstellar landscape surrounding the famous Horsehead Nebula. Captured at near-infrared wavelengths...

NGC 7822: Cosmic Question Mark
13.10.2021

It may look like a huge cosmic question mark, but the big question really is how does the bright gas and dark dust tell this nebula's history of star formation. At the edge...

APOD: 2025 August 1 Б Small Dark Nebula
1.08.2025

A small, dark, nebula looks isolated near the center of this telescopic close-up. The wedge-shaped cosmic cloudlet lies within a relatively crowded region of space though. About 7,000 light-years distant and filled with glowing gas and an embedded cluster of young stars, the region is known as M16 or the Eagle Nebula.

Starlight Reflections
14.04.1998

Wisps of dust fill the space between the stars. This dust is usually invisible, subtly acting to dim the light of more distant stars. Sometimes this dust is thick and prominent as dark patches on otherwise bright emission nebulae. Other times this dust may show itself by reflecting the light of bright, nearby stars.

X Ray Stars and Winds in the Rosette Nebula
19.10.2001

This mosaic of x-ray images cuts a swath across the photogenic Rosette Nebula, a stellar nursery 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. Constructed from data recorded by the orbiting...