An image of our galaxy. A series of photos from the Hubble Space Telescope

Here is a selection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. It has been in the orbit of our planet for more than twenty years and continues to this day to reveal to us the secrets of space.

(Total 30 photos)

Known as NGC 5194, this large galaxy with a well-developed spiral structure may have been the first spiral nebula to be discovered. It is clearly seen that its spiral arms and dust lanes pass in front of its companion galaxy, NGC 5195 (left). This pair is about 31 million light-years away and officially belongs to the small constellation Canes Venatici.

2 Spiral Galaxy M33

Spiral galaxy M33 is a medium-sized galaxy in the Local Group. M33 is also called the Triangulum galaxy after the constellation in which it resides. About 4 times smaller (in radius) than our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), M33 is much larger than many dwarf galaxies. Due to its proximity to M31, M33 is thought by some to be a satellite of this more massive galaxy. M33 near the Milky Way, its angular dimensions are more than twice the size of full moon, i.e. it is perfectly visible with good binoculars.

3. Stephen's Quintet

The group of galaxies is Stefan's quintet. However, only four of the group of galaxies, located 300 million light-years away from us, participate in the cosmic dance, now approaching, then moving away from each other. It's pretty easy to find one. Four interacting galaxies - NGC 7319, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B and NGC 7317 - have a yellowish coloration and curved loops and tails, the shape of which is caused by the influence of destructive tidal gravitational forces. The bluish galaxy NGC 7320, above left, is much closer than the others, only 40 million light-years away.

4 Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest of the giant galaxies to our Milky Way. Most likely our galaxy looks about the same as the Andromeda galaxy. These two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The hundreds of billions of stars that make up the Andromeda galaxy together give a visible diffuse glow. The individual stars in the image are actually stars in our galaxy, much closer than the distant object. The Andromeda Galaxy is often referred to as M31, as it is the 31st object in Charles Messier's catalog of diffuse celestial objects.

5 Lagoon Nebula

The bright Lagoon Nebula contains many different astronomical objects. Objects of particular interest include a bright open star cluster and several active star forming regions. In visual observation, the light from the cluster is lost against the background of a general red glow caused by the emission of hydrogen, while dark filaments arise from the absorption of light by dense layers of dust.

6. Nebula Cat's Eye (NGC 6543)

The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the most famous planetary nebulae in the sky. Her memorable symmetrical shapes are visible in the center of this spectacular false-color image, specially manipulated to show a huge but very faint halo of gaseous material, about three light-years in diameter, surrounding a bright, familiar planetary nebula.

7. Small constellation Chameleon

The small constellation Chameleon is located near the south pole of the World. The picture reveals the amazing features of the humble constellation, which is full of dusty nebulae and colorful stars. Blue reflection nebulae are scattered across the field.

8. Nebula Sh2-136

Cosmic dust clouds faintly glowing with reflected starlight. Far from our familiar places on planet Earth, they hide on the edge of the Cepheus Halo molecular cloud complex, 1200 light-years away from us. Nebula Sh2-136, located near the center of the field, is brighter than other ghostly visions. It is over two light-years across and is visible even in infrared light.

9 Horsehead Nebula

The dark dusty Horsehead Nebula and the glowing Orion Nebula contrast in the sky. They are located at a distance of 1500 light years from us in the direction of the most recognizable celestial constellation. And in today's wonderful composite photo, the nebulae occupy opposite corners. The familiar Horsehead Nebula is a small dark cloud in the shape of a horse's head looming against the background of red glowing gas in the lower left corner of the picture.

10 Crab Nebula

This confusion remained after the explosion of the star. The Crab Nebula is the result of a supernova explosion that was observed in 1054 AD. The supernova remnant is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not just complicated to look at. The Crab Nebula is ten light-years across. At the very center of the nebula is a pulsar - a neutron star with a mass equal to the mass of the Sun, which fits in an area the size of a small town.

11. Mirage from a gravitational lens

This is a mirage from a gravitational lens. The bright red galaxy (LRG) pictured here has its gravity warped light from a more distant blue galaxy. Most often, such a distortion of light leads to the appearance of two images of a distant galaxy, but in the case of a very precise superposition of the galaxy and the gravitational lens, the images merge into a horseshoe - an almost closed ring. This effect was predicted by Albert Einstein 70 years ago.

12. Star V838 Mon

For unknown reasons, in January 2002, the outer shell of the star V838 Mon suddenly expanded, making this star the brightest star in all Milky Way. Then she became weak again, also suddenly. Astronomers have never seen a stellar flare like this before.

13. Birth of planets

How are planets formed? To try to figure this out, the Hubble Space Telescope was tasked with taking a close look at one of the most interesting of all the nebulae in the sky, the Great Nebula of Orion. The Orion Nebula can be seen with the naked eye near the belt of the constellation Orion. The insets in this photo show numerous proplyds, many of which are stellar nurseries that likely host planetary systems in formation.

14. Star cluster R136

At the center of the star-forming region of 30 Doradus is a gigantic cluster of the largest, hottest, and most massive stars known to us. These stars form the R136 cluster, captured in this visible-light image from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope.

The brilliant NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies we see, and at the same time one of the dustiest. Some call it the "Silver Dollar Galaxy" because it is shaped like that in a small telescope. Others simply refer to it as "The Sculptor Galaxy" because it lies within the southern constellation Sculptor. This dusty galaxy is 10 million light-years away.

16. Galaxy M83

M83 is one of the closest spiral galaxies to us. From a distance that separates us from 15 million light years, it looks completely ordinary. However, if we look closer at the center of M83 with the largest telescopes, this area appears to us as a turbulent and noisy place.

17. Ring Nebula

It really looks like a ring in the sky. Therefore, hundreds of years ago, astronomers named this nebula according to its unusual shape. The Ring Nebula also has the designations M57 and NGC 6720. The Ring Nebula is classified as a planetary nebula, a gas cloud that stars similar to the Sun throw out at the end of their lives. Its size exceeds the diameter. This is one of the earliest images of Hubble.

18. Pillar and jets in the Carina Nebula

This cosmic column of gas and dust is two light years wide. The structure is located in one of the largest star-forming regions in our Galaxy, the Carina Nebula, which is visible in the southern sky and is 7500 light-years away from us.

19. Center of globular cluster Omega Centauri

In the center of the globular cluster Omega Centauri, the stars are packed ten thousand times denser than the stars in the vicinity of the Sun. The image shows many faint yellow-white stars, smaller than our Sun, several orange red giants, as well as occasional blue stars. If suddenly two stars collide, then one more massive star can form, or they form a new binary system.

20. A giant cluster distorts and splits the image of the galaxy

Many of them are images of a single unusual, bead-like, blue ring galaxy that happens to be located behind a giant cluster of galaxies. According to recent research, in total, at least 330 images of individual distant galaxies can be found in the picture. This stunning photograph of the galaxy cluster CL0024+1654 was taken by the Space Telescope. Hubble in November 2004.

21. Trifid Nebula

The beautiful multicolored Trifid Nebula allows you to explore cosmic contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies some 5,000 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Sagittarius. The size of the nebula is about 40 light years.

22. Centaurus A

A fantastic bunch of young blue star clusters, giant glowing gas clouds and dark dust lanes surround the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. Centaurus A is close to Earth, at a distance of 10 million light years

23. Nebula Butterfly

Bright clusters and nebulae in planet Earth's night sky are often named after flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. The central star of this planetary nebula is exceptionally hot, with a surface temperature of around 250,000 degrees Celsius.

24. Supernova

An image of a supernova that exploded in 1994 on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy.

25. Two colliding galaxies with merged spiral arms

This remarkable cosmic portrait shows two colliding galaxies with merging spiral arms. Above and to the left of the large spiral galaxy of the NGC 6050 pair, a third galaxy can be seen, which is also likely to be involved in the interaction. All of these galaxies are about 450 million light-years away in the Hercules cluster of galaxies. At this distance, the image spans over 150,000 light-years. And although this view seems quite unusual, scientists now know that collisions and subsequent mergers of galaxies are not uncommon.

26. Spiral galaxy NGC 3521

Spiral galaxy NGC 3521 lies just 35 million light-years away towards the constellation Leo. The galaxy, which spans 50,000 light-years, has features such as ragged spiral arms irregular shape, adorned with dust, pinkish star-forming regions and clusters of young bluish stars.

27. Jet structure details

Although this unusual outlier was first seen in the early twentieth century, its origin is still a matter of debate. The picture above, taken in 1998 by the Hubble Space Telescope, clearly shows details of the jet's structure. The most popular hypothesis suggests that the source of the ejection was heated gas orbiting a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

28. Sombrero Galaxy

The appearance of the M104 galaxy resembles a hat, which is why it was called the Sombrero galaxy. The image shows distinct dark dust lanes and a bright halo of stars and globular clusters. The reasons why the Sombrero Galaxy looks like a hat are an unusually large central stellar bulge and dense dark lanes of dust located in the disk of the galaxy, which we can see almost edge-on.

29. M17 close-up view

Shaped by stellar winds and radiation, these fantastic wave-like formations are found in the M17 Nebula (Omega Nebula) and are part of a star forming region. The Omega Nebula lies in the nebula-rich constellation of Sagittarius and is 5,500 light-years away. Ragged clumps of dense and cold gas and dust are illuminated by the radiation of the stars in the image at the top right, in the future they can become sites of star formation.

30. Nebula IRAS 05437+2502

What illuminates the nebula IRAS 05437+2502? So far, there is no definitive answer. Particularly puzzling is the bright, inverted V-shaped arc that marks the top edge of mountain-like interstellar dust clouds near the center of the image. All in all, this ghostly nebula contains a small star-forming region filled with dark dust. It was first seen in infrared images taken by the IRAS satellite in 1983. Shown here is a wonderful, recently published image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Although it shows a lot of new details, the reason for the appearance of a bright, clear arc could not be established.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 and since then has been continuously documenting every cosmic event it can get its hands on. His mind-blowing images are reminiscent of exquisite paintings by surrealist artists, but all of these are completely real, physical sign phenomena taking place around our planet.

But like all of us, the great telescope gets old. Only a few years remain before NASA releases Hubble to drift towards fiery death in Earth's atmosphere: a fitting end for a true warrior of knowledge. We decided to collect some of the best telescope shots that will always remind humanity how big the world around them is.

galactic rose
The telescope took this picture on the day of its own “coming of age”: Hubble turned exactly 21 years old. The unique object is two galaxies in the constellation Andromeda passing through each other.

triple star
To some, it may seem that in front of him is an old cover of a video cassette with budget science fiction. However, this is a very real Hubble image, capturing the open star cluster Pismis 24.

Black hole dance
Most likely (astronomers themselves are not sure here), the telescope managed to capture the rarest moment of the merger of black holes. The visible jets are particles that stretch for an incredible distance of several thousand light years.

Restless Sagittarius
The Lagoon Nebula attracts astronomers with huge cosmic storms that rage here all the time. This region is filled with intense winds from hot stars: old ones die and new ones immediately come in their place.

supernova
Since the 1800s, astronomers with much less powerful telescopes have observed flares occurring in the Eta Carinae system. In early 2015, scientists concluded that these flashes are so-called "false supernovae": they appear like ordinary supernovae, but do not destroy the star.

divine trace
A relatively recent image taken by the telescope in March of this year. Hubble captured the star IRAS 12196-6300, located at an incredible distance of 2300 light years from Earth.

Pillars of Creation
Three deadly cold pillars of gas clouds surround the star clusters in the Eagle Nebula. This is one of the most famous images of the telescope, dubbed the Pillars of Creation.

sky fireworks
Inside the image, you can see many young stars gathered in a hazy haze. space dust. Columns consisting of dense gas become incubators where new cosmic life is born.

NGC 3521
This flocculent spiral galaxy looks fluffy in the picture due to its stars that shine through dusty clouds. Although the image appears incredibly clear, the galaxy is actually 40 million light-years away from Earth.

DI Cha star system
The unique bright spot in the center consists of two stars shining through dust rings. The system is notable for the presence of two pairs of double stars, and in addition, it is here that the so-called Chameleon Complex is located - the region where entire galaxies of new stars are born.

Earth is a planet of amazing beauty, conquering with its incredible beauty of landscapes. But if you look into the depths of space, using powerful telescopes, you understand: there is something to admire in space too. And photographs taken by NASA satellites, therefore confirmation.

1. Galaxy Sunflower

The Sunflower Galaxy is one of the most beautiful cosmic structures, known to man, in the Universe. Its sweeping spiral arms are made up of new blue-white giant stars.

2. Carina Nebula

Although many consider this image to be photoshopped, it is actually a real shot of the Carina Nebula. Giant accumulations of gas and dust spread over more than 300 light years. This region of active star formation is located at a distance of 6,500 - 10,000 light years from Earth.

3. Clouds in the atmosphere of Jupiter

This infrared image of Jupiter shows the clouds in the planet's atmosphere colored differently depending on their height. Since a large amount of methane in the atmosphere limits the penetration of sunlight, the yellow areas are the clouds at the highest level, the red ones are at the middle level, and the blue ones are the lowest clouds.

What's really amazing about this image is that it shows the shadows of all three of Jupiter's largest moons - Io, Ganymede and Callisto. An event like this happens about once every ten years.

4. Galaxy I Zwicky 18

The picture of galaxy I Zwicky 18 looks more like a scene from Doctor Who, which gives a special cosmic beauty this image. The dwarf irregular galaxy puzzles scientists because some of its star formation processes are typical of galaxy formation in the earliest days of the universe. Despite this, the galaxy is relatively young: its age is only about a billion years.

5. Saturn

The dimmest planet that can be seen from Earth with the naked eye, Saturn is generally considered the favorite planet for all aspiring astronomers. Its remarkable ring structure is the most famous in our universe. The image was taken in infrared to show the subtle hues of Saturn's gaseous atmosphere.

6 Nebula NGC 604

More than 200 very hot stars make up the NGC 604 nebula. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture the nebula's impressive fluorescence caused by ionized hydrogen.

7 Crab Nebula

Compiled from 24 individual images, this photograph of the Crab Nebula shows a supernova remnant in the constellation Taurus.

8. Star V838 Mon

The red ball in the center of this image is the star V838 Mon, surrounded by many dust clouds. This incredible photo was taken after the star's outburst caused a so-called "light echo" that pushed dust further away from the star and into space.

9. Westerlund 2 clusters

The image of the Westerlund 2 cluster was taken in infrared and visible light. It was published in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope in Earth's orbit.

10. Hourglass

One of the eerie images (in fact, the only one of its kind) that NASA made is of a nebula Hourglass. It was named so because of an unusually shaped gas cloud, which was formed under the influence of a stellar wind. It all looks like a terrible eye that looks from the depths of space at the Earth.

11. Witch's broom

All the colors of the rainbow can be found in this image of part of the Veil Nebula, which is 2,100 light-years from Earth. Due to its elongated and thin shape, this nebula is often referred to as the Witch's Broom.

12. Constellation of Orion

In the constellation of Orion, you can see a real giant lightsaber. It is, in fact, a jet of gas under enormous pressure, which creates a shock wave upon contact with the surrounding dust.

13. Explosion of a supermassive star

This image shows the explosion of a supermassive star that looks more like a birthday cake than a supernova. Two loops of star remnants extend unevenly, while a ring in the center surrounds the dying star. Scientists are still looking for a neutron star or black hole at the center of a former giant star.

14. Whirlpool Galaxy

Although the Whirlpool Galaxy looks great, it hides a dark secret (literally) - the galaxy is full of predatory black holes. On the left, the Whirlpool is shown in visible light (i.e., its stars), and on the right, in infrared light (its dust cloud structures).

15. Orion Nebula

In this image, the Orion Nebula looks like the open mouth of a Phoenix bird. The picture was taken in infrared, ultraviolet and visible light to create an incredibly colorful and detailed image. The bright spot in place of the bird's heart is four giant stars, about 100,000 times brighter than the Sun.

16. Ring Nebula

As a result of the explosion of a star similar to our Sun, the Ring Nebula was formed - beautiful hot layers of gas and the remnants of the atmosphere. All that's left of the star is a small white dot in the center of the picture.

17. Milky Way

If someone needs to describe what hell looks like, they can use this infrared image of the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Hot, ionized gas swirls at its center in a giant whirlpool, and in different places massive stars are born.

18. Nebula Cat's eye

The stunning Cat's Eye Nebula is made up of eleven rings of gas that predated the formation of the nebula itself. The irregular internal structure is believed to be the result of a fast-moving stellar wind that has "teared" the bubble shell at both ends.

19. Omega Centauri

Over 100,000 stars clustered together in the globular cluster Omega Centauri. The yellow dots are middle-aged stars, like our Sun. The orange dots are older stars, and the large red dots are stars in the red giant phase. After these stars shed their outer layer of hydrogen gas, they turn bright blue.

20. Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula

One of NASA's most popular photographs of all time is the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. These giant formations of gas and dust were captured in the visible light range. The pillars change over time as they are "weathered" by stellar winds from nearby stars.

21. Stephen's Quintet

Five galaxies, known as "Stefan's Quintet" are constantly "fighting" with each other. Although the blue galaxy in the upper left corner is much closer to Earth than the others, the other four are constantly "stretching" each other apart, distorting their shapes and tearing their arms.

22. Nebula Butterfly

Informally known as the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302 is actually the remains of a dying star. Its ultraviolet radiation causes the gases ejected by the star to glow brightly. Butterfly wings span more than two light years, that is, half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star.

23. Quasar SDSS J1106

Quasars are the result of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The quasar SDSS J1106 is the most energetic quasar ever found. The radiation of SDSS J1106, located at a distance of about 1,000 light-years from Earth, is approximately equal to 2 trillion Suns, or 100 times the entire Milky Way.

24. Nebula "War and Peace"

The nebula NGC 6357 is one of the most dramatic pieces in the sky and it's no surprise that it has been unofficially dubbed "War and Peace". Its dense network of gas forms a bubble around the bright Pismis 24 star cluster, then uses its ultraviolet radiation to heat the gas and push it out into the universe.

25. Carina Nebula

One of the most breathtaking images of space is the Carina Nebula. An interstellar cloud of dust and ionized gases is one of the largest nebulae visible in the earth's sky. The nebula consists of countless star clusters and even the brightest star in the Milky Way galaxy.

Today, on Cosmonautics Day, we will enjoy pictures of the Hubble orbital telescope, which has been in orbit of our planet for more than twenty years and continues to reveal to us the secrets of space to this day.

NGC 5194

Spiral galaxy M33 is a medium-sized galaxy from the Local Group. M33 is also called the Triangulum galaxy after the constellation in which it resides. About 4 times smaller (in radius) than our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), M33 is much larger than many dwarf galaxies. Due to its proximity to M31, M33 is thought by some to be a satellite of this more massive galaxy. M33 is not far from the Milky Way, its angular dimensions are more than twice the dimensions of the full Moon, i.e. it is perfectly visible with good binoculars.

Stephen's Quintet

Group of galaxies - Stephen's quintet. However, only four of the group of galaxies, located 300 million light-years away from us, participate in the cosmic dance, now approaching, then moving away from each other. It's pretty easy to find one. Four interacting galaxies - NGC 7319, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B and NGC 7317 - have a yellowish color and curved loops and tails, the shape of which is due to the influence of destructive tidal gravitational forces. The bluish galaxy NGC 7320, above left, is much closer than the others, only 40 million light-years away.

Andromeda Galaxy is the closest giant galaxy to our Milky Way. Most likely our galaxy looks about the same as the Andromeda galaxy. These two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The hundreds of billions of stars that make up the Andromeda galaxy together give a visible diffuse glow. The individual stars in the image are actually stars in our galaxy, much closer than the distant object. The Andromeda Galaxy is often referred to as M31, as it is the 31st object in Charles Messier's catalog of diffuse celestial objects.

Nebula Lagoon

The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the most famous planetary nebulae in the sky. Its hauntingly symmetrical shapes are visible in the center of this spectacular false-color image, specially manipulated to show a huge but very faint halo of gaseous matter, about three light-years in diameter, that surrounds a bright, familiar planetary nebula.

Cosmic dust clouds faintly glowing with reflected starlight. Far from our familiar places on planet Earth, they hide on the edge of the Cepheus Halo molecular cloud complex, 1200 light-years away from us. Nebula Sh2-136, located near the center of the field, is brighter than other ghostly visions. Its size is more than two light years, and it is visible even in infrared light.

crab nebula

Star V838 Mon

For unknown reasons, in January 2002, the outer shell of the star V838 Mon suddenly expanded, making it the brightest star in the entire Milky Way. Then she became weak again, also suddenly. Astronomers have never seen a stellar flare like this before.

The birth of the planets

How are planets formed? To try and figure this out, the Hubble Space Telescope was tasked with taking a close look at one of the most interesting of all the nebulae in the sky, the Great Nebula of Orion. The Orion Nebula can be seen with the naked eye near the belt of the constellation Orion. The insets in this photo show numerous proplyds, many of which are stellar nurseries that likely host planetary systems in formation.

Star cluster R136

The brilliant NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies we see, and at the same time one of the dustiest. Some call it the "Silver Dollar Galaxy" because in a small telescope it has the appropriate shape. Others simply call it "The Sculptor Galaxy" because it lies within the southern constellation Sculptor. This dusty galaxy is 10 million light-years away.

Galaxy M83

Nebula Ring

Pillar and jets in the Carina Nebula

Center of the globular cluster Omega Centauri

Giant cluster distorts and splits the image of the galaxy

Many of them are images of a single unusual, bead-like blue ring galaxy, which by chance was located behind a giant cluster of galaxies. According to recent research, in total, at least 330 images of individual distant galaxies can be found in the picture. This stunning photograph of the galaxy cluster CL0024+1654 was taken by the Space Telescope. Hubble in November 2004.

Trifid Nebula

Centaurus A

Butterfly Nebula

An image of a supernova that exploded in 1994 on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy.

Spiral galaxy NGC 3521 lies just 35 million light-years away towards the constellation Leo. The galaxy, which spans 50,000 light-years, has features such as ragged, irregular spiral arms adorned with dust, pinkish star-forming regions, and clusters of young bluish stars.

Sombrero galaxy

M17 close-up view