Spectacular photos from space

Smiley faceThis photo taken of the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+8949 by the Hubble Space Telescope appears to show a smiling face at the center. The two eyes are bright galaxies and the smile lines

are arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing. NASA/ESA

EarthLooking down toward Earth from the International Space Station. Sam Cristoforetti

The Earth at nightThe Earth, photographed at night from the International Space Station. Sam Cristoforetti/NASA

The Gulf of Aden and the Horn of AfricaA view of the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa, photographed from the International Space Station. Sam Cristoforetti/NASA

The International Space StationBackdropped by Earth, the International Space Station is seen in an image taken by a crew member onboard the space shuttle Endeavour. NASA/Reuters

The Large Magellanic CloudIn this image, an expanding shell of debris called SNR 0519-69.0 is left behind after a massive star exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. Multimillion degree gas is seen in X-rays from Chandra, in blue. The outer edge of the explosion (red) and stars in the field of view are seen in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA/CXC/SAO

Yellow Balls in W33Infrared wavelengths of 3.6, 8.0, and 24.0 microns observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope are mapped into visible colors red, green, and blue in this striking image. The cosmic cloud of gas and dust is W33, a massive starforming complex some 13,000 light-years distant, near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. So what are all those yellow balls? Citizen scientists of the web-based Milky Way Project found the features they called yellow balls as they scanned many Spitzer images and persistently asked that question of researchers. Now there is an answer. The yellow balls in Spitzer images are identified as an early stage of massive star formation. They appear yellow because they are overlapping regions of red and green, the assigned colors that correspond to dust and organic molecules known as PAHs at Spitzer wavelengths. Yellow balls represent the stage before newborn massive stars clear out cavities in their surrounding gas and dust and appear as green-rimmed bubbles with red centers in the Spitzer image. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Cloud Streets in the Bering SeaIce, wind, cold temperatures and ocean waters combined to created dramatic cloud formations over the Bering Sea in late January, 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the region and captured this true-color image on Jan. 23. The frozen tundra of Russia lies in the northwest of the image, and snow-covered Alaska lies in the northeast. Sea ice extends from the land well into the Bering Sea. Over the dark water bright white clouds line in up close, parallel rows. These formations are known as “cloud streets”. Air blowing over the cold, snowy land and then over ice becomes both cold and dry. When the air then moves over relatively warmer and much moister water and lead to the development of parallel cylinders of spinning air. On the upper edge of these cylinders of air, where the air is rising, small clouds form. Where air is descending, the skies are clear. This clear/cloudy pattern, formed in parallel rows, gives the impression of streets. Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team/NASA

Phoenix, ArizonaOne of the Expedition 35 crew members on the International Space Station used a still camera with a 400 millimeter lens to record this nocturnal image of Phoenix, Arizona. Like many large urban areas of the central and western United States, the Phoenix metropolitan area is laid out along a regular grid of city blocks and streets. While visible during the day, this grid is most evident at night, when the pattern of street lighting is clearly visible from above -- in the case of this photograph, from the low Earth orbit vantage point of the International Space Station. NASA

The Southern Patagonian Ice FieldThe Southern Patagonian Ice Field, photographed from the International Space Station. It is the world's second largest contiguous extrapolar ice field. Oleg Artemyev

Jupiter's moonsThree of Jupiter's largest moons are seen moving across the banded face of Jupiter in these images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope taken on Jan. 24, 2015, and released on Feb. 5, 2015. Jupiter's four largest moons can commonly be seen transiting the face of the giant planet and casting shadows onto its cloud tops. However, seeing three moons transiting the face of Jupiter at the same time is rare, occurring only once or twice a decade, according to a NASA news release. Reuters/NASA

Saharan Dust over the Mediterranean SeaIn early February 2015, Turkey was buffeted by strong southwesterly winds known locally as lodos. The winds grounded flights, collapsed buildings, and stirred up large waves. They also helped bring ashore a cloud of dust that originated in Africa's Sahara Desert. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired the above image of the dust storm on February 1, 2015. The natural-color image shows the dust as it moved from North Africa, swept northeast over the Mediterranean Sea, and blanketed the atmosphere over Turkey and Greece. According to media reports, the dusty winds turned the sky orange in Istanbul (north of this image). Jeff Schmaltz/LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response/NASA

Curiosity Rover at 'Pahrump Hills'NASA's Curiosity Mars rover can be seen at the "Pahrump Hills" area of Gale Crater in this view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Pahrump Hills is an outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp. The region contains sedimentary rocks that scientists believe formed in the presence of water. The location of the rover, with its shadow extending toward the upper right, is indicated with an inscribed rectangle. Figure A is an unannotated version of the image. North is toward the top. The view covers an area about 360 yards across. The bright features in the landscape are sedimentary rock and the dark areas are sand. The HiRISE team plans to periodically image Curiosity, as well as NASA's other active Mars rover, Opportunity, as the vehicles continue to explore Mars. JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona/NASA

Massive ring systemARTIST'S CONCEPTION: Astronomers say they've discovered a planet with a massive ring system that is 200 times larger than the rings around Saturn, and is the first planet of this type discovered beyond our Solar System. This is an artist's conception of the extrasolar ring system circling a young giant planet. The system has at least 30 rings, and there are gaps where exomoons have already formed. The findings by a Dutch-US team are to be published in the Astrophysical Journal. Ron Miller

Baja CaliforniaThe southern tip of Baja California extends into the ocean, as seen from the International Space Station. Samantha Cristoforetti/NASA

Rocky Mountain National ParkMarking the 100th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain National Park on Jan. 26, 2015, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry Virts posted this photograph, taken from the International Space Station, to Twitter. Terry Virts/NASA

Arp 230This image shows Arp 230, also known as IC 51, observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Arp 230 is a galaxy of an uncommon or peculiar shape, and is therefore part of the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies produced by Halton Arp. Its irregular shape is thought to be the result of a violent collision with another galaxy sometime in the past. Hubble/ESA/NASA

Planetary Nebula NGC 5189Planetary nebulae are the final stage in the life of a medium-sized star like our Sun. While consuming the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star expels a large portion of its outer envelope. The appearance of NGC 5189 could be explained by the presence of a binary companion orbiting the central star and influencing the pattern of ejection during its nebula-producing death throes. ESA/NASA/STScI/AURA

Greenland's Leidy GlacierLocated in the northwest corner of Greenland, Leidy Glacier is fed by ice from the Academy Glacier. As Leidy approaches the sea, it is diverted around the tip of an island that separates the Olriks Fjord to the south and Academy Cove to the north. The resulting crisscross pattern is simply the result of ice flowing along the path of least resistance. Terra/NASA

The Galactic Core in InfraredWhat's happening at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have combined their efforts to survey the region in unprecedented detail in infrared light. Infrared light is particularly useful for probing the Milky Way's center because visible light is more greatly obscured by dust. The above image encompasses more than 2,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS taken in 2008. The image spans 300 by 115 light years with such high resolution that structures only 20 times the size of our own Solar System are discernable. Clouds of glowing gas and dark dust as well as three large star clusters are visible. Magnetic fields may be channeling plasma along the upper left near the Arches Cluster, while energetic stellar winds are carving pillars near the Quintuplet Cluster on the lower left. The massive Central Cluster of stars surrounding Sagittarius A* is visible on the lower right. Why several central, bright, massive stars appear to be unassociated with these star clusters is not yet understood. ESA/NASA

The Helix NebulaThis composite image is a view of the colorful Helix Nebula taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Mosaic II Camera on the 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The object is so large that both telescopes were needed to capture a complete view. The Helix is a planetary nebula, the glowing gaseous envelope expelled by a dying, sun-like star. The Helix resembles a simple doughnut as seen from Earth. But looks can be deceiving. New evidence suggests that the Helix consists of two gaseous disks nearly perpendicular to each other.One possible scenario for the Helix's complex structure is that the dying star has a companion star. One disk may be perpendicular to the dying star's spin axis, while the other may lie in the orbital plane of the two stars. The Helix, located 690 light-years away, is one of the closest planetary nebulas to Earth. ESA/NASA

Mount Sharp on MarsThis view from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows dramatic buttes and layers on the lower flank of Mount Sharp. It is a mosaic of images taken on the 387th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. The rover's location was near a waypoint stop called "Darwin" on the drive from Yellowknife Bay toward an entry point to reach the mountain. Colors have been adjusted to show the rocks similarly to how they would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth, though slightly tinted with effects that airborne Martian dust has on illumination. JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA

NGC 3324A 'landscape' image from the cosmos; cutting across a nearby star-forming region are the "hills and valleys" of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. This Hubble image shows the edge of the giant gaseous cavity within the star-forming region, called NGC 3324. The glowing nebula has been carved out by intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from several hot, young stars. A cluster of extremely massive stars, located well outside this image in the center of the nebula, is responsible for the ionization of the nebula and excavation of the cavity. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, it is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula, home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years, and lies in the constellation Carina. ESA/NASA/STScI/AURA

NGC 3021Whatever dark energy is, explanations have less wiggle room following a Hubble Space Telescope observation that refined the measurement of the universe's present expansion rate. The new value for the expansion rate, known as the Hubble Constant, is 74.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Hubble observations of pulsating stars called Cepheid variables in a nearby cosmic mile marker, the galaxy NGC 4258, and in the host galaxies of recent supernovae, directly link these distance indicators. A.Riess/ESA/NASA/STScI/JHU

The Horsehead NebulaRising from a sea of dust and gas like a giant seahorse, the Horsehead nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the sky. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took a close-up look at this heavenly icon, revealing the cloud's intricate structure. The Horsehead, also known as Barnard 33, is a cold, dark cloud of gas and dust, silhouetted against the bright nebula, IC 434. The bright area at the top left edge is a young star still embedded in its nursery of gas and dust. But radiation from this hot star is eroding the stellar nursery. The top of the nebula also is being sculpted by radiation from a massive star located out of Hubble's field of view. Only by chance does the nebula roughly resemble the head of a horse. Its unusual shape was first discovered on a photographic plate in the late 1800s. Located in the constellation Orion, the Horsehead is a cousin of the famous pillars of dust and gas known as the Eagle nebula. Both tower-like nebulas are cocoons of young stars. The Horsehead nebula lies just south of the bright star Zeta Orionis, which is easily visible to the unaided eye as the left-hand star in the line of three that form Orion's Belt. Amateur astronomers often use the Horsehead as a test of their observing skills; it is known as one of the more difficult objects to see visually in an amateur-sized telescope. ESA/NASA/NOAO/STScI/AURA

The Crab NebulaThe Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, all that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion. Observers in China and Japan recorded the supernova nearly 1,000 years ago, in 1054. This is a mosaic image of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's rotation. A neutron star is the crushed ultra-dense core of the exploded star. The Crab Nebula derived its name from its appearance in a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in 1844, using a 36-inch telescope. When viewed by Hubble, as well as by large ground-based telescopes such as the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Crab Nebula takes on a more detailed appearance that yields clues into the spectacular demise of a star, 6,500 light-years away. J. Hester and A. Loll/ESA/NASA

Sunset over the Gulf of MexicoFrom the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset.The space station and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of 220 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Because the station completes each trip around the globe in about 92 minutes, the crew experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. Terry Virts/NASA

Andromeda GalaxyThe largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, this sweeping bird’s-eye view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic next-door neighbor. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble Space Telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disk. ESA/NASA

Pillars of CreationA Hubble telescope photograph of the iconic Eagle Nebula's "Pillars of Creation" is seen in this NASA image released January 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. NASA/Reuters

Arctic air blastSnow cover and clouds from the Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic are seen in an image from NASA's Suomi NPP satellite taken at 02:45 EST on January 8, 2015. An Arctic air blast from Canada hit the U.S. Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with many parts around minus 10 Fahrenheit , the National Weather Service said. NASA/Reuters

Phytoplankton bloomsThe Operational Land Imager captured this view of a phytoplankton bloom near Alaska’s Pribilof Islands. The Pribilofs are surrounded by nutrient-rich waters in the Bering Sea. The milky green and light blue shading of the water indicates the presence of vast populations of microscopic phytoplankton - mostly coccolithophores, which have calcite scales that appear white in satellite images. Such phytoplankton form the foundation of a tremendously productive habitat for fish and birds. Blooms in the Bering Sea increase significantly in springtime, after winter ice cover retreats and nutrients and freshened water are abundant near the ocean surface. Phytoplankton populations plummet in summertime as the water warms, surface nutrients are depleted by blooms, and the plant-like organisms are depleted by grazing fish, zooplankton, and other marine life. By autumn, storms can stir nutrients back to the surface and cooler waters make better bloom conditions. Landsat 8/NASA

Frosty Slopes on MarsThis image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater.At this time of year, only south-facing slopes retain the frost, while the north-facing slopes have melted. Gullies are not the only active geologic process going on here. A small crater is visible at the bottom of the slope. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. Caption: Livio Tornabene, Ryan Hopkins, Kayle Hansen and Eric Pilles

Snow-covered U.S. deep freezeNOAA's GOES-East satellite provided a look at the frigid eastern two-thirds of the U.S. on Jan. 7, 2015, that shows a blanket of northern snow, lake-effect snow from the Great Lakes and clouds behind the Arctic cold front. NOAA GOES Project/NASA

Europa's stunning surfaceThe puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution. The scene shows the stunning diversity of Europa’s surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns. Color variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location. For example, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations. The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

Mystic MountainMystic Mountain reveals a landscape never before studied in such detail. These pillars show the telltale signature of new stars forming at their tips and strong jets of material being ejected into the interstellar medium for great distances. Many such features are seen in the Carina Nebula, a vast area of dust and gas in our Milky Way Galaxy. ESA/NASA

Supernova RemnantA long observation with Chandra of the supernova remnant MSH 11-62 reveals an irregular shell of hot gas, shown in red, surrounding an extended nebula of high energy X-rays, shown in blue. CXC/SAO/NASA

Mount TaranakiEgmont National Park in New Zealand is photographed from space. Mt. Taranaki is at the center of the image. This isolated island of protected forest (dark green area) is surrounded by once-forested pasturelands. USGS/NASA

Jet in the Carina NebulaHubble photographed this image of a stellar jet in Carina, observed in ultraviolet/visible light. ESA/NASA

Galaxy cluster 'El Gordo'This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the most massive cluster of galaxies ever seen to exist when the universe was just half of its current age of 13.8 billion years. The cluster, cataloged as ACT-CL J0102-4915, contains several hundred galaxies swarming around under the collective gravitational pull. The total mass of the cluster, as refined in new Hubble measurements, is estimated to weigh as much as 3 million billion stars like our Sun (about 3,000 times as massive as our own Milky Way galaxy) — though most of the mass is hidden away as dark matter. ESA/NASA

Aerial view of YellowstoneAstronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone photographed from the International Space Station. Reid Wiseman/NASA

Whirlpool Galaxy and CompanionThe graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool's arms are so prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool's arms. ESA/NASA

Monkey Head NebulaThis colorful Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of a small portion of the Monkey Head Nebula unveils a collection of carved knots of gas and dust silhouetted against glowing gas. The cloud is sculpted by ultraviolet light eating into the cool hydrogen gas. As the interstellar dust particles are warmed from the radiation from the stars in the center of the nebula, they heat up and begin to glow at infrared wavelengths, as captured by Hubble. ESA/NASA

Constellation of SerpensThis image captures the stunning NGC 6535, a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent) that measures one light-year across. Globular clusters are tightly bound groups of stars which orbit galaxies. The large mass in the rich stellar centre of the globular cluster pulls the stars inward to form a ball of stars. The word globulus, from which these clusters take their name, is Latin for small sphere. Globular clusters are generally very ancient objects formed around the same time as their host galaxy. To date, no new star formation has been observed within a globular cluster, which explains the abundance of aging yellow stars in this image, most of them containing very few heavy elements. ESA/NASA

Butterfly NebulaWhat resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour—fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 24 minutes! A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun is at the center of this fury. It has ejected its envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the cast-off material glow. This object is an example of a planetary nebula, so-named because many of them have a round appearance resembling that of a planet when viewed through a small telescope. Popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula, which lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The "butterfly" stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. ESA/NASA

A 'rose' made of galaxiesA group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disc that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. The swathe of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light. The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy. A series of uncommon spiral patterns in the large galaxy are a telltale sign of interaction. The large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature that is seen when interacting galaxies actually pass through one another. This suggests that the smaller companion actually dived deeply, but off-centre, through UGC 1810. The inner set of spiral arms is highly warped out of the plane, with one of the arms going behind the bulge and coming back out the other side. How these two spiral patterns connect is still not precisely known. STScI/AURA/NASA

Carina NebulaA 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place. Hubble's view of the nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born. The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova. ESA/NASA

The majestic Sombrero GalaxyNASA's Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104. The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. It is just beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility and is easily seen through small telescopes. The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 28 million light-years from Earth. STScI/AURA/NASA

Celestial fireworksResembling the puffs of smoke and sparks from a summer fireworks display in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, these delicate filaments are actually sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in a neighboring galaxy. Hubble's target was a supernova remnant within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby, small companion galaxy to the Milky Way visible from the southern hemisphere. Denoted N 49, this remnant is from a massive star that died in a supernova blast whose light would have reached Earth thousands of years ago. This filamentary material will eventually be recycled into building new generations of stars in the LMC. Our own Sun and planets are constructed from similar debris of supernovae that exploded in the Milky Way billions of years ago. STScI/AURA/NASA

Eagle NebulaAppearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 57 trillion miles high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star. Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that reside in chaotic neighborhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas. The tower may be a giant incubator for those newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from a band of massive, hot, young stars [off the top of the image] is eroding the pillar. STScI/AURA/NASA

Ceres, Target of NASA's Dawn MissionDiscovered on Jan. 1, 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi of Italy, Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt - the strip of solar system real estate between Mars and Jupiter. On March 6, 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will arrive at Ceres, marking the first time that a spacecraft has ever orbited two solar system targets. Dawn previously explored the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months, from 2011 to 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body. Dawn has entered its approach phase toward Ceres, and the next couple of months promise continually improving views prior to arrival. By the end of January, the spacecraft's images and other data will be the best ever taken of the dwarf planet.This image of Ceres was taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope between December 2003 and January 2004. Hubble images of Vesta and Ceres helped astronomers plan for the Dawn spacecraft’s tour. Astronomers enhanced the sharpness in the image to bring out features on Ceres' surface, including brighter and darker regions that could be asteroid impact features. The observations were made in visible and ultraviolet light. NASA

Opportunity Pausing at a Bright Outcrop on Endeavour Rim, Sol 3854NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is continuing its traverse southward on the western rim of Endeavour Crater during the fall of 2014, stopping to investigate targets of scientific interest along way. This view is from Opportunity's front hazard avoidance camera on Nov. 26, 2014, during the 3,854th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars. This camera is mounted low on the rover and has a wide-angle lens.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Cyclone ChedzaISS042E136404 (01/11/2015) --- This image of Cyclone Chedza, headed for the Island nation of Madagascar, off the African coast was taken by a member of Expedition 42 on the International Space Station Jan. 11, 2015.

Earth SunriseISS042E146657 (01/18/2015) --- Earth sunrise as seen on the International Space Station Jan. 18, 2015.

This July 2001 NASA handout shows a Hubble Space Telescope image of Mars. On 27 August 2003, Mars and Earth will come within 35 million miles of each other, the closest since 1924 and not to be matched until 2287. That's a long way by Earth standards, but only a short distance on the scale of the solar system. NASA, the European Space Agency and Japan are all sending spacecraft to Mars this year. AFP/NASA/ESA/Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of 'peek-a-boo.' In this Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet. Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind its giant host, only to reemerge later. Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It is even larger than the planet Mercury. But Ganymede looks like a dirty snowball next to Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. ESA/Hubble/NASA/AFP/Getty Images

This Hubble image, captured and released to celebrate the telescope’s 23rd year in orbit, shows part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33.This image shows the region in infrared light, which has longer wavelengths than visible light and can pierce through the dusty material that usually obscures the nebula’s inner regions. The result is a rather ethereal and fragile-looking structure, made of delicate folds of gas — very different to the nebula’s appearance in visible light. NASA/ESA/Hubble

This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. NASA/ESA/Hubble

Holiday Lights on the Sun: Imagery of a Solar FlareThe sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:28 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, 2014. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This flare is classified as an X1.8-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc. Image Credit: NASA/SDO

First notable solar flare of 2015The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 11:24 p.m. EST on Jan. 12, 2015. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however - when intense enough - they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. SDO/NASA

Solar Dynamics Observatory Welcomes the New YearThere were no fireworks on the sun to welcome in the New Year and only a few C-class flares during the last day of 2014. Instead, the sun starts 2015 with an enormous coronal hole near the south pole. This image, captured on Jan. 1, 2015 by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows the coronal hole as a dark region in the south. NASA/SDO. Caption: Dean Pesnell

Giant Filament Seen on the SunA dark, snaking line across the lower half of the sun in this Feb. 10, 2015 image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a filament of solar material hovering above the sun's surface. SDO shows colder material as dark and hotter material as light, so the line is, in fact, an enormous swatch of colder material hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. Stretched out, that line – or solar filament as scientists call it – would be more than 533,000 miles long. That is longer than 67 Earths lined up in a row. Filaments can float sedately for days before disappearing. Sometimes they also erupt out into space, releasing solar material in a shower that either rains back down or escapes out into space, becoming a moving cloud known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME. SDO captured images of the filament in numerous wavelengths, each of which helps highlight material of different temperatures on the sun. By looking at such features in different wavelengths and temperatures, scientists learn more about what causes these structures, as well as what catalyzes their occasional eruptions. NASA/SDO

An animation of the sun, seen by NASA's Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) over the course of 6 days, starting June 27, 2005. (Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium)

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cast Spectacular photos from space

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