universal beauty

Interacting Spiral Galaxies

NASA hopes to build a permanent base on one of the moon's poles. It is believed that the extra sunlight, which reaches those areas, could help power the station.

M80 is one of the densest of the 147 known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Located about 28,000 light-years from Earth, M80 contains hundreds of thousands of stars.

The Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus, is located about 6,300 light-years from Earth.

These filaments are formed from sheets of debris thrown off by a stellar explosion in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

NGC 1999, discovered two centuries ago, does not emit visible light of its own. It shines because of light emanating from an imbedded source, which illuminates its dust.

Sombrero galaxy- known formally as Messier 104, this galaxy lies at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster. Its bright magnitude makes it easily visible through small telescopes.

Keyhole nebula- stitched together from four different pointings of the Hubble Telescope, this image reveals a structure approximately seven light years in diameter.

The moon as seen from the Space Shuttle Discovery.