Newborn stars shine like celestial sparklers in a new portrait of the nearby Triangulum Galaxy – the most detailed ultraviolet image of a galaxy ever taken. Astronomers will use the image, taken by NASA's Swift telescope, to create an "age map" of the galaxy's components to understand how galaxies evolve over time. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

What has appeared as a mild-mannered elliptical galaxy in previous studies is revealing its wild side in new images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble photos show shells of stars around a bright quasar, known as MC2 1635+119, which dominates the center of the galaxy. The shells' presence indicates a titanic clash with another galaxy in the relatively recent past. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

The Hubble Space Telescope has found a large galaxy 10.6 billion light-years away from Earth that is stuffing itself with smaller galaxies caught like flies in a web of gravity. The galaxy is so far away that astronomers are seeing it as it looked in the early formative years of the Universe, only 2 billion years after the Big Bang. picked by 2manyusernames 3 years ago

A young star speeding away from the Milky Way is in fact an alien visitor, astronomers have confirmed. The wayward object is one of several rogues that are giving astronomers a glimpse into the volatile nature of our galaxy and others. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

At night, the purity of the sky is unmatched. When the Sun goes down in Atacama, the sky quickly turned dark blue and the glow of thousands of stars awakened while the desert - invisible, empty and silent - seems to disappear.

Check out the time lapse video clips of the Milky Way galaxy over the Atacama Desert.

**To a city girl like me, this is just stunning. picked by bingo 8 months ago

Through some of the very first scientific observations with the brand-new Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, astronomers has found that a recently discovered tiny companion galaxy to our Milky Way, named the Hercules Dwarf Galaxy, has truly exceptional properties: while basically all of its known peers in the realm of these tiny dwarf galaxies are rather round, this galaxy at a distance o... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A newly discovered dwarf galaxy in the Local Group has been found to have formed in a region of space far from our own and is falling into our system for the first time in its history. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

More than 800,000 snapshots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have been stitched together to create a new "coming of age" portrait of stars in our inner Milky Way galaxy. The image depicts an area of sky 120 degrees wide by two degrees tall. High-res zoomable image. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A distant galaxy cluster has turned into a giant particle accelerator, spinning electrons over vast distances at high speeds. Scientists discovered this phenomenon by observing highly energetic X-rays emanating from the Ophiuchus cluster of galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

ESO's Wide Field Imager has captured the intricate swirls of the spiral galaxy Messier 83, a smaller look-alike of our own Milky Way. Shining with the light of billions of stars and the ruby red glow of hydrogen gas, it is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy, whose shape has led to it being nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows baby stars sprouting in the backwoods of a galaxy -- a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's bustling center. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Galaxies tend to give birth to their stars on the road, while travelling down intergalactic highways towards cosmic cities called galaxy clusters, new Spitzer Space Telescope observations reveal. Galaxies in relatively empty regions of the universe flock towards densely populated galaxy clusters, attracted there by the clusters' gravity. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

In a galaxy far, far away, a theft of cosmic proportions is taking place in an effort to claim the fountain of youth. A massive galaxy is stealing a billion suns worth of gas from a smaller galactic neighbor. In space, gas is a hot commodity. Really hot. In this case, about 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit (730 degrees Celsius). And it's great for making new stars. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

As I explained to AutumnLotus in this post, I have always wanted a tail. And I thought I was all alone until I found out these instructions on how to build an animatronic tail that wags. Also check out video and Tiger Tail How-To. Awesome. picked by MissWinkle 1 year ago

Edwin Hubble once called IC 10 “one of the most curious objects in the sky,” and new observations of the extremely faint, lightweight dwarf galaxy are giving scientists new clues about how populations of stars are born. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

This new guide for astronomers, known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) shows the Milky Way in submillimetre-wavelength light (between infrared light and radio waves). Images of the cosmos at these wavelengths are vital for studying the birthplaces of new stars and the structure of the crowded galactic core. picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

A large star in its death throes is leaving a huge, turbulent tail of oxygen, carbon and nitrogen in its wake that makes it look like an immense comet hurtling through space. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

New images show the "last meal" of a giant cannibal galaxy as it gobbles down a smaller spiral galaxy, which has been twisted and warped from being devoured.

The giant galaxy, Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the nearest giant, elliptical galaxy, at a distance of about 11 million light-years. picked by AutumnLotus 1 day ago

A coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center harbors a hidden black hole surrounded by a storm of star formation.

The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years from Earth. It is spiral-shaped like our own Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago