Welcome to the Universe

Discover the universe: Learn about the history of the cosmos, what it's made of, and so much more.

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Exoplanets

Worlds beyond our solar system.

Stars

Giant balls of hot gas that burn for millions to billions of years. 

Black Holes

Concentrations of matter with gravity so powerful not even light can escape.

Looking like a pinwheel, this face-on spiral galaxy holds a bright-white core at image center. Arms curve outward from the core. They hold dark dust lanes and bright star-forming regions. All on a black background dotted with stars.

Galaxies

Collections of stars, planets, and vast clouds of gas and dust bound together by gravity.

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NASA’s Chandra Finds Galaxy Cluster That Crosses the Streams

Astronomers using Chandra’s X-Ray Observatory spotted a galaxy with two streams of superheated gas crossing – a risky move in any universe. Instead of destroying all life as we know it, the crossed streams might lead to a new structure.

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This release features a composite image of two pairs of hot gas tails found inside a single galaxy cluster. The image is presented both labeled and unlabeled, with color-coded ovals encircling the hot gas tails. In both the labeled and unlabeled versions of the image, mottled purple gas speckles a region of space dotted with distant flecks of red and white. Also present in this region of space are several glowing golden dots. These dots are individual galaxies that together form the cluster Zwicky 8338. To our right of center is a glowing golden galaxy with a mottled V shaped cloud of purple above it. Yellow labels identify the two arms of the V as tails trailing behind the hurtling galaxy below. To our left of center is another golden galaxy, this one surrounded by purple gas. Behind it, opening toward our right in the shape of a widening V lying on its side, are two more mottled purple clouds. Labeled in white, these newly-discovered gas tails are even larger than the previously discovered tails labeled in yellow. These tails, which overlap with the galaxy on our right, are over 1.6 million light-years long.
Researchers have discovered a second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this cluster. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy close to this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays that have been shown in the optical data. These tails span for over a million light-years and help determine the evolution of the galaxy cluster.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./C. Ge; Optical: DESI collaboration; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

Galaxy of Horrors

Take a tour of some of the most terrifying and mind-blowing destinations in our galaxy … and beyond. After a visit to these nightmare worlds, you may never want to leave Earth again!

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A scarlet star looms behind the ruins of an exoplanet that resembles the shape of a skull. A red galaxy arm is visible in the background. It is apparent that this galaxy, named MACS 2129-1, has been decaying since it stopped producing stars only a few billion years after the big bang.

Creepy Cosmic News

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A Dead Star’s Ghostly Glow

wispy green swirling through space
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Halloween Special: Universe of Monsters

An illustration of zombies on an exoplanet
STEREO_Betelgeuse
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What is Betelgeuse? Inside the Strange, Volatile Star

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Bright orange-red "cobwebs" appear to encircle the star, CW Leonis.
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Hubble Celebrates Halloween with a Glowering, Dying Star

Article3 years ago
Bright white dwarf star at center of the image, a disk of dust and rocks encircles it, black chunks of rock in the foreground and off to the right swirl into the white dwarf star at center
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Dead Star Caught Ripping Up Planetary System

Article2 years ago
Featured Video

Data Sonification: Black Hole at the Center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster

 In this haunting sonification of Perseus, sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The signals were then resynthesized into the range of human hearing by scaling them upward by 57 and 58 octaves above their true pitch.

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Featured News

Explore All Universe News
Article
2 min read

Hubble Observes a Peculiar Galaxy Shape

An oval-shaped galaxy seen tilted at an angle. It glows brightly at its core and radiates outward, dimming toward the edge of the oval. Reddish-brown, patchy dust spreads out from the core and covers much of the galaxy’s top half, as well as the outer edge, obscuring some of its light. Stars are visible around and in front of the galaxy.
Article
4 min read

Via NASA Plane, Scientists Find New Gamma-ray Emission in Storm Clouds

Two lightning strikes are visible in the distance at night with city lights along the left of the image along the coastline of the bay that occupies the lower right and curves into the landscape on the lower left. The majority of the image is occupied by dark gray cloudcover.
Artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 as seen from the side against a dark, mostly starless swath of space. The rocky, bilobed nucleus is toward the right and resembles the simplified shape of a peanut. The left side of the centaur is partially illuminated by the Sun, which is off-screen, revealing the nucleus’ light brown surface. Four jets of gas, depicted as translucent cones of white, emanate from various points on the Centaur’s surface and extend beyond the frame: two emanate upward from the top, one jet spews from the bottom and extends downward, and one jet emanates from the left side of the nucleus and extends toward the left. A label in the bottom left corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”
7 min read

NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P

Article2 days ago
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NASA’s TESS Spots Record-Breaking Stellar Triplets

Article2 days ago
A spiral galaxy seen tilted diagonally. It has two large, curling arms that extend from the center and wrap around. Thick strands of dark reddish dust follow behind these arms. The galaxy’s arms and disk are speckled with glowing patches of gas — some are blue in color, others are pink — illuminated by new stars. A faint glow surrounds the galaxy, which lies on a dark, nearly empty background.
2 min read

Hubble Captures Stellar Nurseries in a Majestic Spiral

Article1 week ago

MSH 15-52

In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low-energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember.

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In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember. The hand reaches up from the bottom of the image, the ghostly blue flesh and white bones representing pulsar wind nebula X-rays observed by Chandra. A bright white spot in the wrist is the pulsar itself. Just beyond the hand’s fingertips, near our upper right, is a mottled yellow and orange shape that appears to glow from within. This is the low energy X-ray cloud observed by Chandra.
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Discover More Topics From NASA

Galaxies

Looking like a pinwheel, this face-on spiral galaxy holds a bright-white core at image center. Arms curve outward from the core. They hold dark dust lanes and bright star-forming regions. All on a black background dotted with stars.

Black Holes

Stars

Exoplanets