Infrared view of 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. Using its infrared capabilities, the telescope was able to peer through the thick clouds of dust and gas. The most obvious difference between Hubble’s infrared and visible images of this region is the abundance of stars that fill the field of view in the infrared. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula. However, some of them are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula itself.

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

Hubble's 28th birthday picture: The Lagoon Nebula (Uncropped image): 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: Nebulae
Constellation: Sagittarius
Distance: 4000 light years
Release date: 19 April 2018, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

Artist’s impression of WASP-107b: The exoplanet WASP-107b is a gas giant, orbiting a highly active K-type main sequence star. The star is about 200 light-years from Earth. Using spectroscopy, scientists were able to find helium in the escaping atmosphere of the planet — the first detection of this element in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.

Name: WASP 107-b
Type: Milky Way : Star : Circumstellar Material : Planetary System
Category: Exoplanets
Distance: 200 light years
Release date: 2 May 2018, 19:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser

The glowing spiral arms of NGC 6744: This image shows the galaxy NGC 6744, about 30 million light-years away. It is one of 50 galaxies observed as part of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS), the sharpest, most comprehensive ultraviolet-light survey of star-forming galaxies in the nearby Universe, offering an extensive resource for understanding the complexities of star formation and galaxy evolution. The image is a composite using both ultraviolet light and visible light, gathered with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Name: NGC 6744
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Pavo
Distance: 30 million light years
Release date: 17 May 2018, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the LEGUS team

Dwarf galaxy UGCA 281: UGCA 281 is a blue compact dwarf galaxy located in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Within it, two giant star clusters appear brilliant white and are swaddled by greenish hydrogen gas clouds. These clusters are responsible for most of the recent star formation in UGCA 281; the rest of the galaxy is comprised of older stars and appears redder in colour. The reddish objects in the background are background galaxies that appear through the diffuse dwarf galaxy. The image is a composite using both ultraviolet light and visible light, gathered with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Name: UGCA 281
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Release date: 17 May 2018, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the LEGUS team

Messier 66 — member of the Leo Triplet: The spiral galaxy Messier 66 is located at a distance of about 35 million light-years in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). Together with Messier 65 and NGC 3628, Messier 66 is a member of the Leo Triplet, a trio of interacting spiral galaxies. Like all the galaxies in LEGUS, Messier 66 is undergoing vigorous star and star-cluster formation. One of the goals of LEGUS is to sample star-forming regions across each galaxy. Because the galaxies are relatively close to Earth, Hubble can resolve individual stars. An image of this galaxy was already released back in 2010 (heic1006). This newly-processed image now also shows ultraviolet radiation Hubble captured from the galaxy.

Name: Messier 66
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Leo
Distance: 35 million light years
Release date: 17 May 2018, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the LEGUS team