Messier 17 is a familiar target for amateur astronomers, an impressive nebula in even modest telescopes. But the Swan reveals its vast extent in a spectacular shot from the European Southern Observatory’s 2.2-metre La Silla telescope.
The black hole in the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy has been imaged for the first time, showing a ring of gas encircling the event horizon, beyond which no light can escape.
The MeerKAT radio telescope has produced a stunning mosaic of the Milky Way’s central regions, providing a new view of known and newly-discovered phenomena.
Looking into the bulge of the Milky Way, the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a dynamic sea of stars made up of different generations, velocities and histories.