Formation of extragalactic jets from a black hole accretion disk: Artist's impression of the formation region of M 87's jet. An accretion disk (red-yellow) surrounds the black hole, and its magnetic field lines twist tightly to channel the outpouring subatomic particles into a narrow jet. The jet opens widely near the black hole, then is shaped into a narrower beam within a light-year of the black hole. Artist's concept of the formation region of M 87's jet. An accretion disk (red-yellow) surrounds the black hole, and its magnetic field lines twist tightly to channel the outpouring subatomic particles into a narrow jet. The jet opens widely near the black hole, then is shaped into a narrower beam within a light-year of the black hole.

Name: Messier 87, NGC 4486, Virgo Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN
Category: Quasars and Black Holes
Distance: 55 million light years
Release date: 27 October 1999, 20:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and Ann Feild ( Space Telescope Science Institute)

Swarm of Glittering Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has peered at a small area within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to provide the deepest colour picture ever obtained in that satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.

Name: IRAS 05240-6948, Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC
Type: Local Universe : Star : Grouping : ClusterLocal Universe : Galaxy : Type : IrregularLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Dwarf
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 2 December 1999, 07:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)

Multiple galaxy collisions: Astronomers have interpreted the oddly shaped objects in these NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope snapshots as strong visual evidence for multiple galaxies crashing into each other. These smashups create a tangled clump of matter and trigger a burst of new stars.

Name: Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting
Category: Galaxies
Release date: 22 November 1999, 07:00
Credit: NASA/ESA, Kirk Borne (Raytheon and NASA/ESA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.), Luis Colina (Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, Spain), and Howard Bushouse and Ray Lucas ( Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.)

Gas clouds raining star stuff onto Milky Way Galaxy: This composite radio light image and rendition of our galaxy as seen in visible light shows enigmatic 'high-velocity clouds' of gas high above the plane of the Milky Way which rain gas into the galaxy, seeding it with the stuff of stars. The cloud outlined, and possibly others too, is now known to have low heavy element content and to be raining down onto the Milky Way disk, seeding it with material for star birth. Identifying this infalling gas helps in solving a long-standing mystery of galactic evolution by revealing a source of the low-metallicity gas required to explain the observed chemical composition of stars near the Sun.

Name: Milky Way
Type: Milky Way
Category: GalaxiesMiscellaneous
Release date: 24 November 1999, 20:00
Credit: Image composite by Ingrid Kallick of Possible Designs, Madison Wisconsin. The background Milky Way image is a drawing made at Lund Observatory. High-velocity clouds are from the survey done at Dwingeloo Observatory (Hulsbosch & Wakker, 1988)

Messier 72, a celestial city from above: As the first in the new weekly series of spectacular images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Hubble Picture of the Week, ESA/Hubble presents a stunning image of an unfamiliar star cluster. This rich collection of scattered stars, known as Messier 72, looks like a city seen from an airplane window at night, as small glints of light from suburban homes dot the outskirts of the bright city centre. Messier 72 is actually a globular cluster, an ancient spherical collection of old stars packed much closer together at its centre, like buildings in the heart of a city compared to less urban areas. As well as huge numbers of stars in the cluster itself the picture also captures the images of many much more distant galaxies seen between and around the cluster stars. French astronomer Pierre Méchain discovered this rich cluster in August of 1780, but we take Messier 72’s most common name from Méchain’s colleague Charles Messier, who recorded it as the 72nd entry in his famous catalogue of comet-like objects just two months later. This globular cluster lies in the constellation of Aquarius (the Water Bearer) about 50 000 light-years from Earth. This striking image was taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image was created from pictures taken through yellow and near-infrared filters (F606W and F814W). The exposure times were about ten minutes per filter and the field of view is about 3.4 arcminutes across.

Name: Messier 72
Type: Milky Way : Star : Grouping : Cluster : Globular
Category: Star Clusters
Constellation: Aquarius
Distance: 50000 light years
Release date: 22 April 2010, 20:10
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The dusty beauty of NGC 2082: The richly textured spiral galaxy NGC 2082 is found about 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Dorado (the Swordfish), deep in the southern sky. As seen here in a very detailed image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, filaments of dark dust splay across NGC 2082’s luminous curved arms and dense central bulge of stars. Hubble’s sharp vision also reveals many of the individual bright blue stars dotting the galaxy’s rather ragged spiral arms as well as many much more distant galaxies in the background. This galaxy is faintly visible in backyard telescopes and was first recorded by Sir John Herschel during his visit to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in the 1830s. NGC 2082 was also the host of a bright supernova that was spotted by the great visual supernova discoverer Rev R. Evans back in 1992. This picture was created from images taken through blue and near-infrared filters (F435W and F814W) using the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The total exposure time was 19 minutes per filter and the field of view is about 2.2 x 1.6 arcminutes in size.

Name: NGC 2082
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Dorado
Distance: 60 million light years
Release date: 3 May 2010, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA