Looking "underneath" the quasar HE0450-2958: This image shows the quasar HE0450-2958 after advanced image processing known as MCS-deconvolution. Thanks to this technique, it is possible to remove the brilliant glare from the quasar itself. The most interesting feature in the image is the nearly total absence of starlight from a host galaxy. The processing also reveal an interesting smaller cloud of gas about 2,500 light-years wide, which the scientist call "the blob", just next to the quasar. VLT observations show this cloud to be glowing because it is bathed in the intense radiation coming from the quasar. Most likely, it is the gas from this "blob" that feeds the super massive black hole, thereby allowing it to shine as a quasar.

Name: HE 0450-2958, QSO B0450-299
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Quasar
Category: Quasars and Black Holes
Distance: z=0.246 (redshift)
Release date: 14 September 2005, 19:00
Credit: NASA/ESA, ESO, Frédéric Courbin (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland) & Pierre Magain (Universite de Liège, Belgium)

The Andromeda galaxy's active core (artist's impression): This artist's concept shows a view across a mysterious disk of young, blue stars encircling a supermassive black hole at the core of the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy (M31). The region around the black hole is barely visible at the center of the disk. The background stars are the typical older, redder population of stars that inhabit the cores of most galaxies. Spectroscopic observations by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal that the blue light consists of more than 400 stars that formed in a burst of activity about 200 million years ago. The stars are tightly packed in a disk that is only a light-year across. Under the black hole's gravitational grip, the stars are traveling very fast: 2.2 million miles an hour (3.6 million kilometers an hour, or 1,000 kilometers a second).

Name: Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31, NGC 224
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Component : Center/Core
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 2 million light years
Release date: 20 September 2005, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Schaller (for STScI)

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) wide-field image: Image of M31 taken with a 12.5-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope by amateur astronomer Robert Gendler.

Name: Andromeda Galaxy, IRAS 00400+4059, M 31, Messier 31, NGC 224
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Andromeda
Distance: 2 million light years
Release date: 20 September 2005, 19:00
Credit: ÷ 2002 R. Gendler, Photo by R. Gendler

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) - HST WFPC2: A Hubble WFPC2 image of the core of M31. Astronomers believe the two bright objects are a ring of red stars and a disk of blue stars.

Name: Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31, NGC 224
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 2 million light years
Release date: 20 September 2005, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and T. Lauer (NOAO/AURA/NSF)

Artist's rendition of the core of M31: Artist's rendition of the core of M31 that shows a ring of older red stars and a disk of  young blue stars.

Name: Andromeda Galaxy, IRAS 00400+4059, M 31, Messier 31, NGC 224
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : SpiralLocal Universe : Galaxy : Component : Center/Core
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 2 million light years
Release date: 20 September 2005, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)