Farthest Supernova Ever - SN 1997ff: Astronomers found this supernova in 1997 during a second look at the northern Hubble Deep Field, a tiny region of sky first explored by the Hubble telescope in 1995. The image shows the myriad of galaxies Hubble spied when it peered across more than 10 billion years of time and space.

Name: SN 1997FF
Type: Early Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : SupernovaEarly Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: z=1.7 (redshift)
Release date: 2 April 2001, 19:00
Credit: NASA/ESA, Adam Riess ( Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD)

The Heart of the Whirlpool Galaxy: The Whirlpool galaxy, M51, has been one of the most photogenic galaxies in amateur and professional astronomy. Easily photographed and viewed by smaller telescopes, this celestial beauty is studied extensively in a range of wavelengths by large ground- and space-based observatories. This Hubble composite image shows visible starlight as well as light from the emission of glowing hydrogen, which is associated with the most luminous young stars in the spiral arms.

Name: IRAS 13277+4727, M 51, Messier 51, NGC 5194, Whirlpool Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Distance: 25 million light years
Release date: 5 April 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA )

Comet LINEAR: Astronomers analyzing debris from a comet that broke apart lastsummer spied pieces as small as smoke-sized particles and aslarge as football-field-sized fragments. But it's the materialthey didn't see that has aroused their curiosity. Tracking thedoomed comet, named LINEAR, the Hubble telescope and the VeryLarge Telescope in Chile found tiny particles that made up the 2,000-mile-long dust tail and 16 large fragments, some as wide as330 feet. But the telescopes didn't detect any intermediate-sized pieces. If they exist, then the fundamental building blocks that comprised LINEAR's nucleus may be somewhat smaller than currenttheories suggest. The Hubble picture shows that that LINEAR's nucleus has beenreduced to a shower of glowing "mini-comets" resembling the fiery fragments from an exploding aerial firework. This picture was takenwith Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on August 5, 2000, whenthe comet was at a distance of 64 million miles (102 millionkilometers) from Earth.

Name: Comet Linear
Type: Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Comet
Category: Solar System
Release date: 17 May 2001, 20:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and Hal Weaver (The Johns Hopkins University)

Digitized Sky Survey I: This is the Digitized Sky Survey I (DSS-I) view of the Rosette Nebula.

Name: NGC 2237, Rosette Nebula
Type: Unspecified : Nebula
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Monoceros
Release date: 4 June 2001, 18:30
Credit: NASA/ESA, the DSS-II and GSC-II Consortia (with images from the 'Palomar Observatory-STScI Digital Sky Survey of the northern sky, based on scans of the Second Palomar Sky Survey are copyright ) 1993-1999 by the California Institute of Technology)

Digitized Sky Survey II: This is the Digitized Sky Survey II (DSS-II) view of the Rosette Nebula.

Name: NGC 2237, Rosette Nebula
Type: Unspecified : Nebula
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Monoceros
Release date: 4 June 2001, 18:30
Credit: NASA/ESA, the DSS-II and GSC-II Consortia (with images from the 'Palomar Observatory-STScI Digital Sky Survey of the northern sky, based on scans of the Second Palomar Sky Survey are copyright ) 1993-1999 by the California Institute of Technology)

A Portrait of R136: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a panoramic portrait of a vast, sculpted landscape of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born. This fertile star-forming region, called the 30 Doradus Nebula, has a sparkling stellar centerpiece: the most spectacular cluster of massive stars in our cosmic neighborhood of about 25 galaxies. The mosaic picture shows that ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material unleashed by the stars in the cluster, called R136 [the large blue blob left of center], are weaving a tapestry of creation and destruction, triggering the collapse of looming gas and dust clouds and forming pillar-like structures that are incubators for nascent stars.

Name: 30 Doradus, R136
Type: Local Universe : Star : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Star Clusters
Constellation: Dorado
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 26 July 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA/ESA, N. Walborn and J. Mamz-Apellaniz ( Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD), R. Barba (La Plata Observatory, La Plata, Argentina)

Star Clusters Born in the Wreckage of Cosmic Collisions: This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the group of galaxies called Stephan's Quintet has provided a detailed view of one of the most exciting star forming regions in the local Universe. Stephan's Quintet is a favoured object for amateur astronomers and has earned a reputation as a challenging target for good hobby telescopes. The quintet is a prototype of a class of objects known as compact groups of galaxies and has been studied intensively for decades. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a close-up view of the central part of Stephan's Quintet, giving a magnificent view of a gigantic cosmic collision. Weird, highly distorted features, dust lanes crossing between galaxies and long filaments of stars and gas extending far beyond the central regions all suggest galaxies twisted by violent encounters. The galaxies float through space, distorted shapes moulded by tidal interactions, weaving together in the intricate figures of an immense cosmic dance, choreographed by gravity. In the beginning of the 1946 holiday film classic 'It's a Wonderful Life, ' angelic figures take on the form of a famous group of compact galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet. In reality, these galaxies aren't so heavenly. Pictures from the Hubble telescope show that Stephan's Quintet has been doing some devilish things. At least two of the galaxies have been involved in high-speed, hit-and-run accidents, which have ripped stars and gas from neighboring galaxies and tossed them into space. But the galactic carnage also has spawned new life. Arising from the wreckage are more than 100 star clusters and several dwarf galaxies. The young clusters, each harboring up to millions of stars, are shown clearly for the first time in pictures taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.

Name: Stephan's Quintet
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Pegasus
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 19 July 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA/ESA, Jayanne English (University of Manitoba), Sally Hunsberger (Pennsylvania State University), Zolt Levay ( Space Telescope Science Institute), Sarah Gallagher (Pennsylvania State University), and Jane Charlton (Pennsylvania State University)

Stephan's quintet: Studying the star clusters and dwarf galaxies in Stephan's Quintet provides insights into how galactic encounters may have driven galaxy evolution in the early universe. The quintet resides 270 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

Name: Stephan's Quintet
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 19 July 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA & ESA