The ancient peo­ples saw pic­tures in the sky. From those pat­terns in the heav­ens, ancient sto­ry­tellers cre­ated sto­ries about heroes, maid­ens, drag­ons, bears, cen­taurs, dogs and myth­i­cal crea­tures. What kid doesn’t see drag­ons and angels in the clouds while lying in warm grass on a sum­mer after­noon? What grown-up doesn’t wish upon a shoot­ing star? So lie back and imag­ine the ani­mals, insects and pat­terns swirling in these Hub­ble Space Tele­scope, Spitzer Space Tele­scope and other obser­va­tory images. We believe the expla­na­tions are best suited for par­ents, edu­ca­tors and upper-grade stu­dents. Par­ents of younger chil­dren may find it help­ful to explore the uni­verse together with their child. Par­ents can use the explana­tory text as a guide. Inter­act with the images and find your own pat­terns in the stars. Con­jure your own sto­ries and set­tings and share them. Leave a com­ment on the site about what you see in the images. We love to share your stories.

Credit: NASA and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA)

Wispy fil­a­ments of the Veil Neb­ula resem­ble a fish with multi-colored fins in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. The scat­tered pieces of the Veil Neb­ula are all that remains of a bril­liant super­nova that exploded 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. The entire neb­ula spans a huge area in the sky equiv­a­lent to six full moons.

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Credit: NASA and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA)

Hot, blue stars form a halo around the yel­low cen­ter of a galaxy known as Hoag’s Object. From Earth, we view this odd galaxy face-on in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope.

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Credit: NASA, ESA and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (AURA/STScI).

Drama plays out in deep space as a small fish swims from the jaws of a larger creature.

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Credit: NASA & ESA

Float­ing like a bug under a micro­scope, I Zwicky 18 is an odd-looking galaxy. Astronomers pre­vi­ously thought this pecu­liar galaxy was very young because it resem­bles galax­ies typ­i­cally found in the early uni­verse. But images from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope show older stars within the galaxy lead­ing sci­en­tists to update their ideas. They now believe I Zwicky 18 was born about the same time as the Milky Way Galaxy and the Androm­eda Galaxy.

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Credit: NASA & ESA

Shin­ing with iri­des­cent hues of red and blue, the Helix Neb­ula resem­bles an eye in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. Plan­e­tary neb­ula come in all shapes and sizes. In the case of the Helix Neb­ula, and the Ring Neb­ula, we are look­ing down a trillion-mile-long bar­rel of gas and dust; all that is left over when the cen­tral star shed its outer lay­ers near the end of its life. A plan­e­tary neb­ula is the final stage of a Sun-like star’s life. As a star like our Sun reaches the end of its life, it bal­loons to a red giant star. While this gives the star new life, pro­vid­ing extra energy to burn it’s hydro­gen and helium fuel for nuclear fusion, it can­not last for­ever. Even­tu­ally the star col­lapses on itself. The outer lay­ers of the star are thrown into space cre­at­ing a bub­ble around the star.

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Credit: NASA & ESA

A thou­sand cos­mic tad­poles appear to stream toward the cen­tral star of the Helix Neb­ula in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope.

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Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA), and The Hub­ble Her­itage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

To me, this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope looks like a lum­ber­ing, long-necked Bron­tosaurus. Maybe a tur­tle with a long tail. What do you see in this image?

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Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA)

Col­or­ful shapes and lines play in this NASA Hub­ble Space Tele­scope image of the glow­ing plan­e­tary neb­ula IC 4593. Plan­e­tary neb­ula have noth­ing to do with plan­ets. In the 17th and 18th cen­turies, astronomers peer­ing through small tele­scopes look­ing for plan­ets would find objects that resem­bled plan­ets. Astronomers now know that these neb­ula are the last remains of dying Sun-like stars. As a star reaches the end of its life and the hydro­gen fuel needed to sus­tain fusion in its core runs out, the star expands into a red giant. Even­tu­ally, how­ever, the star col­lapses back on itself. This increases the tem­per­a­ture at its core and it explodes. Most of the star’s mate­r­ial is cat­a­pulted into space, form­ing a bub­ble around the star. This doesn’t hap­pen all at once but in stages.

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Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hub­ble Her­itage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Col­lab­o­ra­tion, and A. Evans (Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

This galax­ian drag­on­fly, wings folded, rests deep in space. NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope clearly shows a pair of merg­ing, edge-on galax­ies called NGC 6670. Astronomers believe the two galax­ies have already had one close encounter with each other and are mak­ing a sec­ond pass. The galax­ies are just 50,000 light years apart. For com­par­i­son, our Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light-years wide and the near­est large galaxy to it is the Androm­eda Galaxy at two mil­lion light-years away.

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Credit: NASA & ESA

The land­scape of Mars’ hazy Hel­las Basin twists and turns as if some­one spread warm peanut but­ter across it and let it ooze down­hill. Fea­tures, shown in this image from NASA’s HiRISE cam­era aboard the Mars Recon­nais­sance Orbiter, snake across the plain. Some shapes curl up in shell-like shapes. Explore the strange land­forms. Between some of the snake-like, flow­ing shapes, you can find sand dunes and craters.

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