Credit: ESO

S

Explore the clumps and rings of this nearby planetary nebula. What patterns or stories do you see? Fireworks? A flower? Leave a note below.

The Helix Nebula formed when a star much like our Sun reached the final stages of life. After billions of years, the star ran out of hydrogen fuel. In an attempt to keep burning the remaining fuel, the star ballooned in size to become a red giant. But even this is not enough. The star puffed its outer layers into space forming an expanding bubble. A tiny blue dot, a white dwarf, is all that remains of the star. This white-hot cinder will take billions of years to cool.

From side to side, the Helix Nebula spans about four light-years; about the same distance between our Sun and the nearest star. Blazing radiation from the dead core of the star cause the gas in the expanding rings to glow like a neon sign. Zoom in close into the strands pointing toward the center of the system. Astronomers call these cometary knots. Each of these knots is about the size of our solar system. Scientists don’t know why the knots form but they do know how. Clumps of gas and dust blown outward from the star by the strong solar wind clump together. The leading edge of the knots shields the rest of the clump from the solar wind and radiation that would blow them away.

The image was taken with ESO’s VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory high in the mountains of Chile. The clear skies make it easy for the 4.1-meter telescope to pick out the faint light from the nebula and from faraway galaxies. Although the gas in this nebula is cool, VISTA’s infrared sensors detect the faint heat from the expanding cloud. The nebula looks much different to our eyes in visible light.

The Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth. Light from the nebula has traveled at 6 trillion miles per year for 700 years to reach our eyes on Earth. It is found in the constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer.

Send as an ECard

Credit: NASA/ESA Hubble

A blue cosmic horseshoe rings a massive galaxy in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Explore the Cosmic Horseshoe and the faraway galaxies in this image of deep space. What stories or pictures do you see? Leave a note below.

The Cosmic Horseshoe is an example of an Einstein Ring. Albert Einstein predicted that gravity could bend light. The ring is actually a galaxy on the far side of the bright galaxy at its center. The center galaxy has incredible mass; about ten times that of our own Milky Way. It is one of a group of galaxies known as Luminous Red Galaxies. The strong gravitational pull of the galaxy warps and magnifies the light of the faraway galaxy like a lens.

The chance alignment offers scientists a glimpse at the early Universe. By studying the light of the blue galaxy, astronomers believe light from the galaxy has been traveling to our eyes for almost 11 billion years. The Universe itself is believed to be incredibly old at about 13.7 billion years old.

Astronomers discovered the Cosmic Horseshoe in 2007.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Pink puffs of cloud created by supernovae explosions dominate this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Explore the glowing bubbles of IC 2574. What stories or patterns do you see? Leave a note below.

IC 2574 is also known as Coddington’s Nebula after American astronomer Edwin Coddington who discovered the galaxy in 1898. The pink shells of gas blown open by the supernovae are surrounded by blue stars. Supernovae explosions send shockwaves throughout the surrounding dust clouds smashing material together. This compression can cause new stars to form. The pink color comes from hydrogen gas that glows because of blistering radiation from the newborn stars.

Astronomers classify IC 2574 as a dwarf irregular galaxy. Instead of a clear structure, like the spiral structure of M51, IC 2574 has no organization. Astronomers study these types of galaxies because they give a hint at the earliest galaxies that formed in the Universe. Faraway in the background, look for the glow of scattered galaxies.

IC 2574 is found about 13 million light-years from Earth toward the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear or the Big Dipper. The small galaxy is part of the Messier 81 group of galaxies.

Credit: ESO

A fine ring of gas and dust surrounds a dying star in this image from the European Southern Observatory.

Explore the Fine Ring Nebula. What stories do you see? Leave a note below.

Planetary nebulae form when stars about the size of our Sun reach the end of their lives. After eight billion years or so, their hydrogen fuel begins to run out. They expand and become red. Astronomers call these red giants. During this stage of their life, they puff out bubbles of gas and dust. All that remains of the star is the white-hot core, called a white dwarf. Ultraviolet radiation from this dead star causes the gas in the expanding shell to glow. Some planetary nebula are round-shaped. Others look like bow-ties, dragonflies or butterflies.

The Fine Ring Nebula may be different. Astronomers think that this nebula has two stars orbiting each other. The bubble that has formed is donut-shaped. We are looking down from the top of this star system. Interactions between the stars and the nebula create the weaved patterns in the bubble.

The Fine Ring Nebula is found about 2,500 light-years from Earth toward the southern constellation Norma, the Square. French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille first charted the small constellation in the 18th century. He originally named his constellation Norma et Regular, the Set Square and The Ruler.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Faces pop out of the star cloud around IRAS 10082–5647 in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image.

Explore the wisps and swirls in this reflection nebula. What stories or pictures do you see? Leave a note below.

IRAS 10082–5647 is a new star in the neighborhood; just a few million years old. In this phase of its life, the star heats itself by gravity. Gravity draws the star material on itself. Atoms in the star become packed in tighter and tighter making it more dense and hotter. Eventually, the hydrogen in the star will begin to fuse. At this point it will become a full-fledged star and will enter what astronomers call the Main Sequence. It will spend billions of years in this phase of life. Our Sun is a 4 billion year old Main Sequence star.

Some clouds of gas and dust around stars glow like the Orion Nebula or the Eagle Nebula. Ultraviolet radiation from giant stars cause these nebula to glow like neon lights. Instead of shining with its own light, the nebula surrounding IRAS 10082–5647 softly reflects the light of the star. Strong solar wind from the star is sculpting and pushing the gas and dust of the cloud outward. Some of that dust may become new stars one day. And there may be enough gas and dust left over in a disk around the star to form planets, moons and comets.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Williams (NCSU)

The outline of a face show the remains of the oldest documented supernova in this infrared image of RCW 86 from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

Explore the dusty glowing remains of this exploded star. What patterns or stories do you see? Leave a note below.

In 185 A.D., the Chinese wrote about a mysterious “guest star” that appeared in the sky. The star remained visible for eight months. The Chinese had no way of knowing they witnessed one of the most powerful events in the universe. Using images from Spitzer and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, astronomers are able to piece together the story Chinese historians first witnessed nearly 2,000 years ago. RCW 86 is a special kind of supernova. A white dwarf, the dead remains of a star like our Sun, pulled material from a companion star. As this material piles up, it becomes super-hot. Reactions inside the star go haywire and the star explodes. Astronomers call this a Type 1A supernova. Supernova give off so much light energy, they briefly outshine an entire galaxy.

Using the data from the orbiting observatories, astronomers solved another puzzle; how the remnant got so large in just 1,800 years. They found that the white dwarf, with its strong solar wind, created a bubble within the region around the star. The cavity was already huge when the star exploded. When it blew up, a shockwave pushed the edge of the bubble out much quicker than it normally would.

The colors of the image are not real but they do provide scientists important information. Infrared data from Spitzer and WISE are shown in yellow and red. These colors show warm dust in deep space. Blues and greens in the image are from X-ray data taken from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton Observatory. The X-rays show gas in deep space that has been heated to millions of degrees as the expanding edge of the supernova passed.

Light from RCW 86 took about 8,200 years to reach the eyes of the Chinese historians. The remains of the “guest star” are found in the faint southern constellation Circinus, the Compass. From Earth, the bubble is slightly larger than a full moon. At this distance, that makes the bubble about 85 light-years across.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Texas/S.Park et al, ROSAT; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF

With a blob of gas bulging from the side, supernova remnant G299.2–2.9 looks like a celestial Cyrano de Bergerac in this image from NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Explore the remains of this remnant found only 16,000 light-years from Earth. What shapes do you see? Leave a note below.

Cyrano de Bergerac was a French playright in the 1600s. He is featured in plays of the time as having a large nose. The misshapen blob on the side of this supernova remnant resembles a nose.

G299.2–2.9 was created by a Type Ia supernova. A white dwarf pulled material from a parent star onto its surface. Over time, the white dwarf became more massive and hotter which ignited a thermonuclear blast that obliterated both stars.

As you explore the supernova remnant, look for faint orange inside the main ring. This glow is made up of iron and silicon atoms; elements only created in a supernova explosion. Also, look for a faint double shell in the outer ring.

Scientists theorize Type Ia supernovae explode in areas without much gas and dust surrounding the star. This causes the expanding cloud of star material to grow in a smooth bubble. G299.2–2.9 does not follow that pattern. The remnant intrigues scientists because it has a complex, irregular shape. G299.2–2.9 is older than most Type Ia supernovae we see from Earth. So astronomers are able to study how the structures evolve over time. Astronomers also use these type of supernovae explosions to help study the expansion of the Universe.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Compact and distant, globular star cluster NGC 7006 resembles a fuzzy starry critter in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Explore this group of stars brought into sharp focus by the powerful telescope aboard Hubble. What stories or patterns do you see? Leave a note below.

NGC 7006 is a faraway part of the Milky Way Galaxy. At about 135,000 light-years from Earth, it and many other globular clusters form a sparse halo around our galaxy. This globular cluster is more than five times more distant than the Sun’s distance from the center of the galaxy. Globular clusters are groups of tightly woven groups of stars that are bound together by gravity. They likely formed at about the same time. Astronomers use globular clusters to study how stars formed.

NGC 7006 currently is moving away from the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s orbit is very elongated, or eccentric. Astronomers theorize that the globular cluster formed with another small galaxy and was captured by our galaxy during a galactic interaction in the past. But while NGC 7006 is very distant, it is much closer than the many background galaxies seen in the image. The light from these faroff smudges of light has taken millions of years to reach our eyes come from galaxies that are millions of light-years from Earth. Their

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

With sparkling stars for gems, Messier 78 glows like a pair of cool cosmic shades in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

Explore the greenish nebula. What other shapes or images do you see in this image? Leave a note below.

The two round nebulae that make up M78 are actually cavities carved out of a darker dust clouds. Intense light and blistering ultraviolet radiation streaming from newborn stars carve cavities from the dust. This dust helped create the new stars. Spitzer looks deep into the clouds revealing warm objects deep within the cold cloud. It’s that warm dust that shows so brightly in this image. Through a telescope, we cannot see these new stars. Along the rim of the glasses, look for a string of reddish pinpoints. These are new stars that have yet to blow away the shells of gas and dust from which they were born.

Messier 78 is easily seen through a small telescope just northeast of Orion’s belt from Earth. The nebula is found about 1,600 light-years from Earth toward the constellation of Orion, the Hunter.

Credit: ESO

Two deformed galaxies known as The Eyes glow in dark in this image from the European Southern Observatory.

Explore the deformed dust lanes, star clouds and faint halo of NGC 4438 and NGC 4435. What pictures or stories do you see in this image? Leave a note below.

Multiple galactic collisions have warped the spiral arms of the larger galaxy, known as NGC 4438. The process has caused a burst of formation of new stars in the center of the galaxy. A trail of gas, dust and blue stars extends to the edge of the image. NGC 4435, the smaller of the pair, is even more affected by the near collision. The two galaxies are just 100,000 light-years apart. Gravitational tides pushed and pulled at the material from NGC 4438 throwing it outward. The process stripped NGC 4435 of its halo of gas and dust. Recent observations have shown that filaments of gas connect NGC 4438 to another large galaxy Messier 86, leading many astronomers to believe they interacted about 100 million years ago.

Also explore the far-away background galaxies that dot the image.

The Eyes belong to a rich grouping of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster. The galaxies are in the Milky Way’s cosmic neighborhood, just 50 million light-years from Earth.