This spectacular image of the brilliant young blue stars and contrasting red giants of open cluster Messier 47 in the southern constellation of Puppis was taken with the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are two colliding galaxies in the constellation of Ursa Major some 130 million light-years from Earth. Between them they have produced one of the most bountiful collections of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) known.
First or last Quarter Moon is the best time to see some of the magnificent crater chains near the centre of the Earth-turned lunar hemisphere. Marnix Praet from Belgium provides this high-resolution view of the Hipparchus and Albategnius region.
The Pleiades in Taurus, otherwise known as the Seven Sisters, is an unrivalled open cluster of late autumn and winter Northern Hemisphere skies. This marvellous portrait of M45 was taken by Ian Aiken.
Put on your red-blue 3D glasses to appreciate this view of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen by Philae’s ROLIS imaging system from a distance of 2 miles (3 km).
NASA uses modern processing techniques to rework a mosaic of images sent back by the Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s, delivering a high-resolution view of this icy ocean world in natural colours.
This new Hubble image is a snapshot of NGC 986 — a barred spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), discovered by James Dunlop in 1828.
On the eve of Philae’s landing, the European Space Agency has released its top ten images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko taken by Rosetta’s navigation camera from its lowest orbit just 10 kilometres from the centre of the nucleus.