Wide-field view of Arp 256 (ground-based image): This ground-based image shows the two spiral galaxies of the Arp 256 system and their surroundings.

Name: Arp 256
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Cetus
Distance: 350 million light years
Release date: 8 March 2018, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2; Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

Wide-field view of Arp 256 (ground-based image): This ground-based image shows the two spiral galaxies of the Arp 256 system and their surroundings.

Name: Arp 256
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Cetus
Distance: 350 million light years
Release date: 8 March 2018, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2; Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

A ghostly galaxy lacking dark matter: NGC 1052-DF2 resides about 65 million light-years away in the NGC 1052 Group, which is dominated by a massive elliptical galaxy called NGC 1052. This large, fuzzy-looking galaxy is so diffuse that astronomers can clearly see distant galaxies behind it. This ghostly galaxy is not well-formed. It does not look like a typical spiral galaxy, but it does not look like an elliptical galaxy either. Based on the colours of its globular clusters, the galaxy is about 10 billion years old. However, even the globular clusters are strange: they are twice as large as typical groups of stars. All of these oddities pale in comparison to the weirdest aspect of this galaxy: NGC 1052-DF2 is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. The galaxy contains only a tiny fraction of dark matter that astronomers would expect for a galaxy this size. But how it formed is a complete mystery. Hubble took this image on 16 November 2017 using its Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Name: NGC 1052-DF2
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Cetus
Distance: 65 million light years
Release date: 28 March 2018, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University)

Ground-based view of the sky around the galaxies NGC 1052-DF4 NGC & 1052-DF2: This image shows the sky around the ultra diffuse galaxies NGC 1052-DF4 and NGC 1052-DF2. It was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. NGC 1052-DF2 is basically invisible in this image. In 2018 an international team of researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories uncovered, for the first time, a galaxy in our cosmic neighbourhood that is missing most of its dark matter. This discovery of the galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 was a surprise to astronomers, as it was understood that Dark matter (DM) is a key constituent in current models of galaxy formation and evolution. In fact, without the presence of DM, the primordial gas would lack enough gravity pull to start collapsing and forming new galaxies. A year later, another galaxy that misses dark matter was discovered, NGC 1052-DF4, which further triggered intense debates among astronomers about the nature of these objects. Now, new Hubble data have been used to explain the reason behind the missing dark matter in NGC 1052-DF4, which resides 45 million light-years away, providing further evidence for tidal disruption. By studying the galaxy’s light and globular cluster distribution, astronomers have concluded that the gravity forces of the neighbouring galaxy NGC 1035 stripped the dark matter from NGC 1052-DF4 and are now tearing the galaxy apart.

Name: NGC 1052-DF2
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Cetus
Distance: 65 million light years
Release date: 28 March 2018, 19:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Digitized Sky Survey 2Acknowledgement: Davide de Martin

Appearance of the most distant star: This image composite shows the discovery of the most distant known star using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image to the left shows a part of the the deep-field observation of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 from the Frontier Fields programme gathered in 2014. The square indicates the position where the star appeared in May 2016 — its image magnified by gravitational microlensing. This part of the image also shows the four images of the Refsdal supernova, arranged in an Einstein cross. The upper right image pinpoints the position of the star, observed in 2011. The lower right image shows where the star was undergoing the microlensing event in late May 2016.

Name: Lensed Star 1
Type: Early Universe : Star
Category: Stars
Distance: 5 billion light years
Release date: 2 April 2018, 17:00
Credit: NASA & ESA and P. Kelly (University of California, Berkeley)

Lensed star in the cluster MACS j1149.5+223: This image shows the the huge galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+223, whose light has taken over 5 billion years to reach us. Highlighted is the position where the star LS1 appeared — its image magnified by a factor 2000 by gravitational microlensing. The galaxy in which the star is located can be seen three times on the sky — multiplied by strong gravitational lensing.

Name: Lensed Star 1, MACS J1149+2223
Type: Early Universe : StarEarly Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: GalaxiesStars
Distance: 5 billion light years
Release date: 2 April 2018, 17:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Rodney (John Hopkins University, USA) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu (University of California Los Angeles, USA), P. Kelly (University of California Berkeley, USA) and the GLASS team; J. Lotz (STScI) and the Frontier Fields team; M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH team; and Z. Levay (STScI)

Third image of galaxy hosting most distant known star: The galaxy containing the most distant star known so far is visible three times in the galaxy cluster MACS j1149.5+223. The multiple images are created through the process of strong gravitational lensing. While two of the images of the galaxy are close to the centre of the galaxy cluster, this third image is farther out and almost undistorted.

Name: MACS J1149+2223
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Release date: 2 April 2018, 17:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Rodney (John Hopkins University, USA) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu (University of California Los Angeles, USA), P. Kelly (University of California Berkeley, USA) and the GLASS team; J. Lotz (STScI) and the Frontier Fields team; M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH team; and Z. Levay (STScI)

Hubble's 28th birthday picture: The Lagoon Nebula: To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colourful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across. This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world. The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between 12 February and 18 February 2018.

Name: Lagoon Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: AnniversaryNebulae
Constellation: Sagittarius
Distance: 4000 light years
Release date: 19 April 2018, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI