History of the Universe

The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina...

Grayscale Image of the Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina...

Carina Nebula Details

This Hubble Space Telescope view of the central region of the Carina Nebula reveals a violent maelstrom of star birth. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the intense pressure of starlight from monster stars and their accompanying star clusters, as well as...

Carina Nebula Details: Pillar

An approximately one-light-year tall "pillar" of cold hydrogen towers above the wall of the molecular cloud. The 2.5-million-year-old star cluster called Trumpler 14 appears at the right side of the image. A small nugget of cold molecular hydrogen, called a Bok globule, is...

Carina Nebula Details: The Caterpillar

A Bok globule nicknamed the "caterpillar" appears at the right. Its glowing edge indicates that it is being photoionized by the hottest stars in the cluster. It has been hypothesized that stars may form inside such dusty cocoons. The top of the Keyhole Nebula, the most prominent...

Carina Nebula Details: Great Clouds

These great clouds of cold hydrogen resemble summer afternoon thunderheads. They tower above the surface of a molecular cloud on the edge of the nebula. So-called "elephant trunk" pillars resist being heated and eaten away by blistering ultraviolet radiation from the nebula's...

Star-Forming Region in the Carina Nebula

[Left] - A towering "mountain" of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust is the site of new star formation in the Carina Nebula. The great gas pillar is being eroded by the ultraviolet radiation from the hottest newborn stars in the nebula. [Right] - A close-up look at the peak of...

Star-Forming Region in the Carina Nebula: Detail 1

A towering "mountain" of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust is the site of new star formation in the Carina Nebula. The great gas pillar is being eroded by the ultraviolet radiation from the hottest newborn stars in the nebula.

Star-Forming Region in the Carina Nebula: Detail 2

A close-up look at the peak of one of these "pillars of creation" reveals unequivocal evidence that stars are being born inside the columns. A pencil-like streamer of gas shoots out in both directions from the pillar and plows into surrounding gas like a fire hose hitting a wall...

Dark Globule and Stellar Jet in the Carina Nebula

The tadpole-looking feature in the center of this image is a nodule of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust. The image offers circumstantial evidence that a young star is being born inside the placental cloud. The diagonal feature may be caused by twin jets of gas blasting away...

Key to Detail Images

This labeled image identifies some of the significant features in the Carina Nebula region. The rectangles outline the details in the accompanying photographs. Several of the brightest stars are identified by their catalog numbers (CPD=Cape Observatory Photographic...

CTIO Image of Carina Nebula

Ground-Based Image of Carina Constellation

AAO Image of Carina Nebula

Ground-Based Image of Carina Nebula

This image was obtained by astrophotographer Robert Gendler and Jan -Erik Ovaldsen. The B, V, R data was acquired using the Danish 1.5 meter scope at La Silla, Chile in 2006.

Three-Dimensional Distribution of Dark Matter in the Universe (with 3 slices of time)

This three-dimensional map offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the universe's mass. This milestone takes astronomers from inference to direct observation of dark matter's influence in...

Extended Groth Strip – Detail of Hubble Image

Artist's Impression of a Transiting Exoplanet

This is an artist's impression of a Jupiter-sized planet passing in front of its parent star. Such events are called transits. When the planet transits the star, the star's apparent brightness drops by a few percent for a short period. Through this technique, astronomers can use...

A Gallery of 'Tadpole Galaxies'

These postage-stamp-size images reveal 36 young galaxies caught in the act of merging with other galaxies. These galaxies appear as they existed many billions of years ago. Astronomers have dubbed them "tadpole galaxies" because of their distinct knot-and-tail shapes, which...

The Host Galaxies of Gamma-ray Bursts

This is a sampling of the host galaxies of long-duration gamma-ray bursts taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Gamma-ray bursts are powerful flashes of high-energy radiation that arise from some supernovae, the explosive deaths of extremely massive stars. Long-duration bursts...

Artist's Concept of Nearest Exoplanet to Our Solar System

This is an artist's concept of a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. Located 10.5 light-years away, it is the closest known exoplanet to our solar system. The planet is in an elliptical orbit that carries it as close to the star as Earth is from the...

A String of 'Cosmic Pearls' Surrounds an Exploding Star

Two decades ago, astronomers spotted one of the brightest exploding stars in more than 400 years. Since that first sighting, the doomed star, called Supernova 1987A, has continued to fascinate astronomers with its spectacular light show. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is one of...

Close Up of Ancient, White Dwarf Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy

Looking 'Underneath' Quasar HE0450-2958

This image shows the quasar HE0450-2958 after advanced image processing known as MCS-deconvolution. Thanks to this technique, it is possible to remove the brilliant glare from the quasar itself. The most interesting feature in the image is the nearly total absence of starlight...

Photo Illustration of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Planet Jupiter

This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the Wide Field & Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC-2), aboard. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Jupiter was imaged on May 18, 1 994, when the giant planet was at a distance...

Pluto and Its Moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra

A pair of small moons that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered orbiting Pluto now have official names: Nix and Hydra. Photographed by Hubble in 2005, Nix and Hydra are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto and are about two to three times farther from Pluto than its large...

Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme (Color)

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. It is a 50-light-year- wide view of the central...

Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme (Black and White)

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. It is a 50-light-year- wide view of the central...

Zoom into the Carina Nebula