Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 by Gemini North

Click the image for higher resolution

NGC 1514, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula, is showcased in this enchanting image captured by Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope, located on Maunakea in Hawai'i. Gemini North is one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

German–British astronomer William Herschel discovered the Crystal Ball Nebula in 1790. It's located in the constellation Taurus, near the border of Perseus. While, culturally, crystal balls are known for divining the future, the Crystal Ball Nebula provides us with a snapshot of the final stages of a star's life from long ago. It sits around 1500 light-years from Earth. This means the light captured in this image left its source around 1500 years ago, traveling across the Universe before finally reaching Gemini North.

The Crystal Ball Nebula is categorized as a planetary nebula, a nomenclature first presented by the nebula's discoverer, William Herschel. He coined the term in the 1700s after spotting the spherical shape of these objects, which reminded him of planets. In reality, planets and planetary nebulae are unrelated.

Planetary nebulae form when a low- or intermediate-mass star ejects its outer layers near the end of its life, forming a somewhat spherical cloud of gas. They typically have smoother, spherical shapes, making the Crystal Ball Nebula unique for its bumpy shells of gas. As the central star casts away this gas, its inner core is exposed. Radiation from the core energizes the gas, giving it a scorching temperature and chromatic glow. The Crystal Ball Nebula, for example, has an estimated temperature of 15,000 K.

Herschel found this object fascinating, amazed by its faintly illuminated shell. Prior to its discovery, he believed that nebulae were collections of stars that were too far away to individually resolve. The distinct bright point at the heart of the gaseous shell shattered this theory. He wrote in 1791, "Our judgment I may venture to say, will be, that the nebulosity about the star is not of a starry nature." He believed the illumination of the Crystal Ball Nebula came from a single star, not a far-off grouping.

While it may appear in this image as if there is a single shining light source at the heart of the Crystal Ball Nebula, as Herschel saw, it actually contains two stars. These two stars orbit each other with a period of around nine years – the longest known for any binary pair within a planetary nebula. Scientists believe that one of these stars, which was once several times more massive than our Sun, released its outer layers while in the throes of death. As the progenitor star and its binary companion orbit each other, they mold the expanding shell of gas with their strong, asymmetrical winds, forming the lumpy layers we see today.

Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Image Processing: J. Miller and M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin and M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

The Pillars of Creation as seen by Webb

Click the image for higher resolution (9.8 MB)

By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, the Universe has been framed in its infrared glory. Webb's near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details.

Myriad stars are spread throughout the scene. The stars primarily show up in near-infrared light, marking a contribution of Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Near-infrared light also reveals thousands of newly formed stars – look for bright orange spheres that lie just outside the dusty pillars.

In mid-infrared light, the dust is on full display. The contributions from Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are most apparent in the layers of diffuse, orange dust that drape the top of the image, relaxing into a V. The densest regions of dust are cast in deep indigo hues, obscuring our view of the activities inside the dense pillars.

Dust also makes up the spire-like pillars that extend from the bottom left to the top right. This is one of the reasons why the region is overflowing with stars – dust is a major ingredient of star formation. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Newly formed stars are especially apparent at the edges of the top two pillars – they are practically bursting onto the scene.

At the top edge of the second pillar, undulating detail in red hints at even more embedded stars. These are even younger, and are quite active as they form. The lava-like regions capture their periodic ejections. As stars form, they periodically send out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years.

Almost everything you see in this scene is local. The distant universe is largely blocked from our view both by the interstellar medium, which is made up of sparse gas and dust located between the stars, and a thick dust lane in our Milky Way galaxy. As a result, the stars take center stage in Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation.

The Pillars of Creation is a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb's NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI), A. M. Koekemoer (STScI)

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

Deep Field in the Constellation Lupus by Rubin

Click the image for higher resolution (7.1 MB)

This 1.7-gigapixel image of a field of stars in the constellation Lupus showcases the unprecedented view of the Universe that NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory gives us. Equipped with the LSST Camera – the largest digital camera in the world – Rubin combines a wide view of the sky with the ability to detect extremely faint objects. With this capability, Rubin can reveal details of the cosmos across an enormous range of scales, from distant galaxies, to individual stars, to the wispy clouds of dust spread throughout our galaxy.

The faint, glowing clouds spread across this image are galactic cirrus: clouds of interstellar gas and dust that can be seen in the foreground of the Milky Way. Rubin's ability to capture scenes like this in unmatched detail will open new windows into the structure of our galaxy and the Universe beyond it.

Imaqge Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

Galaxy Centaurus A as seen by Webb

Click the image for higher resolution (2.6 MB)

The James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals the nearby galaxy Centaurus A, exposing the dusty structures and hidden activity that shape this unusual system. Webb's infrared vision pierces thick lanes of dust that obscure much of the galaxy in visible light, unveiling intricate filaments, loops, and glowing clouds of warm dust stretching across its center. At the heart of the galaxy, an actively feeding supermassive black hole shines brightly, surrounded by complex structures sculpted by a past galactic collision and ongoing activity.

This image of the galaxy Centaurus A stretches across a black background filled with thousands of tiny purple, pink, and white points of light. The galaxy is brightest at its center, where a brilliant white and pale pink glow radiates outward. Eight diffraction spikes extend from the central glow. Delicate loops and wispy ribbons of pink and lavender arc above and below the center of the image in the shape of an "S". A band of gray and white dust in the shape of a parallelogram cuts across the middle of the galaxy. Mottled patches and bright knots are scattered throughout the dusty band. The galaxy's outer edges fade into soft, cloud-like plumes with feathery textures that stretch toward the left and right sides of the image. Against the surrounding darkness, a few bright foreground stars shine with Webb's distinctive diffraction spikes, while countless fainter stars create a speckled backdrop.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI), J. Depasquale (STScI), M. Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

Inside the Simonyi Survey Telescope Dome

Click the image for higher resolution (5.3 MB)

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science (DOE/SC), is captured here beginning its first night of on-sky observations with the LSST Camera as night settles across the sky. This long-exposure image gives us a great sense of the observatory’s scale, with three people on the gangway in the lower-right corner. Petr Horálek, NOIRLab Audiovisual Ambassador, captured this image during the on-sky commissioning of the camera on 15 April 2025.

The teal telescope mount for Rubin's Simonyi Survey Telescope was built in Spain and shipped in pieces to its current residence on Cerro Pachón in the foothills of the Chilean Andes. There, engineers and technicians reassembled the mount on the telescope pier inside the observatory over four years, partially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The mount may look somewhat similar to other telescopes, but it incorporates a unique three-mirror design that makes the entire telescope much shorter and gives it a lower center of gravity. This unique design allows the mount to precisely hold and quickly move the mirrors and LSST Camera, the largest digital camera ever built. The weight of the mount, mirror, and camera totals 350 metric tons (386 US tons).

Photo Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava)

Galaxy Cluster MACS J0553.4-3342 by Webb

Click the image for higher resolution (9.0 MB)

In this picture from the James Webb Space Telescope we are taken on a visit to a building site of significant scale. The project is a galaxy cluster named MACS J0553.4-3342, located in the constellation Columba (the Dove).

MACS J0553.4-3342 is situated at a redshift of 0.412. Redshift is a measure of how much the cluster's light has been stretched by the expansion of the Universe over the course of its long journey to Webb's mirrors; this unassuming number tells us that we are seeing MACS J0553.4-3342 as it was 4.4 billion years in the past. But for a galaxy cluster, this is relatively young. In fact, observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes show a cluster still in the process of being built.

MACS J0553.4-3342 is composed of two sub-clusters – roughly equal in mass – that are actively merging. The two subclusters have already slammed through each other and travelled over one million light-years apart, but they will eventually come back together again and again until they finally merge. The construction process is messy, and MACS J0553.4-3342 is filled with extremely hot gas that radiates powerful X-rays. Each subcluster is anchored on an immensely bright and massive elliptical galaxy, which are easily identifiable as the two brightest points in the centre of this scene with the largest glowing halos around them. The many smaller white elliptical galaxies are bound to one of the two subclusters by gravity, and will be incorporated into the final galaxy cluster. This image also features many foreground galaxies – spirals and dusty discs that are unrelated to MACS J0553.4-3342 – and prominent bright stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Even mid-way through its construction, the titanic clumps of matter swirling around in this galaxy cluster have built a device that is already very useful for us here on Earth: a gravitational lens. The extreme and concentrated mass in MACS J0553.4-3342 curves light with its gravity, similar to how a glass lens bends and focuses light. In this image you can see prominent orange, stretched-out arcs alongside each of the subclusters. These arcs are images of distant background galaxies, whose light has been warped by the galaxy cluster's gravitational pull. The arc on the left side, three bright spots joined together, is actually three images of a single background galaxy! A forest of smaller arcs and lines are scattered across the image too; such a fantastic view appears in few other places in the Universe.

Look in the right spot, however, and this galaxy cluster turns from a distorting funhouse mirror into a precision scientific device. The gravitational lensing focuses light, magnifying objects and enhancing their brightness so if they lie in exactly the right place, background galaxies and even individual stars that would have been far too faint and distant to spot will be made visible. By carefully mapping out the mass of the cluster, researchers can reconstruct where and how strongly it distorts light from our point of view, then search for serendipitously-magnified distant objects to study. The arcs we can see in MACS J0553.4-3342 already show a few galaxies from less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

This image, taken with Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), stems from a survey programme named VENUS (#6882). Astronomers aimed to create a collection of deep, high-quality images of massive galaxy clusters like MACS J0553.4-3342 across a wide range of infrared wavelengths, greatly expanding the area covered by Webb's sensitive instruments. Researchers can then scour the clusters for distant and faint objects that have been brightened through gravitational lensing, from young galaxies and low-mass black holes to supernova explosions and individual stars. Gravitational lensing has been key to many of Webb's most dramatic discoveries in recent years, and having many more examples of it allows us to systematically study the distant past and the evolutionary stages of the galaxies, stars and black holes we see today.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA and CSA, S. Fujimoto

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

Galaxy Cluster Abell 3574

Click the image for higher resolution (6.2 MB)

The galaxy cluster Abell 3574 is captured here by the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, one of around 40 telescopes at the U.S. National Science Foundation Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

Located about 200 million light-years away, Abell 3574 is a gravitationally-bound group of hundreds of galaxies. Galaxy clusters are the second-largest-scale structures known in the Universe, but even at their massive scale these galaxies are never all that far from each other. In the top left, the large galaxy IC 4329, surrounded by rings of light, shows evidence of a past cosmic collision. The spread-out fragments of illuminated blue and white gas on the right side of the image are evidence of a similar clash with the galaxy NGC 5291 (yellow color). If you look closely, you can see more evidence of gravitationally interacting galaxies. Do you notice any?

The camera that captured this image was specifically designed for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and was operated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and NSF between 2013 and 2019. The purpose of DES was to map out hundreds of millions of galaxies and record their distances to help astronomers understand dark energy. Since the conclusion of DES, the DES data have been made available to the public and the DECam has been available to other researchers on the Blanco telescope.

Image Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Image processing: R. Colombari, M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) and T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab)

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure