Once in a while we peer into the heavens and show you a photograph that even the richest and most gifted of photographers can't match. And that's the case today, because what you see above is a photo of the Messier 15 (or M15) cluster of stars taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Spanish visual artist Sergio Albiac is offering the world a chance to meld with the universe in an innovative project that combines portraiture with images from the Hubble space telescope.
Albiac calls his "Stardust" project "an experiment in generative portraiture."
Check out this mind-bending video that talks about the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field" image captured by NASA astronomers nearly a decade ago -- a photograph that some call "the most important image ever taken."
The space agencies that run the Hubble Space Telescope may have some of the most powerful photographic equipment at their disposal, but every now and then they can still use a little help from amateur astrophotographers.
Amateur astrophotographer Robert Gendler created the beautiful photograph above showing the spiral galaxy M106 by compositing existing imagery captured by the Hubble telescope with his own photos captured from Earth.
Following the journey of the James Webb Space Telescope and the brilliant minds who made it possible, Deep Sky is a new IMAX film hitting theaters tomorrow, April 19. PetaPixel chatted with one of these brilliant minds, NASA's Matt Mountain, who has worked on the Webb team since 2002.
Astronomers using the groundbreaking Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have captured the first view of the magnetic fields surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). The novel new image was captured using polarized light.
As scientists continue to use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to do incredible things, like find the first direct evidence of a neutron star in a nearby supernova remnant, it also generates many beautiful images that are easy for anyone to appreciate. That's where the monthly Webb Picture of the Month comes in. This month's new photo is of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1559.
A photographer spent five years traveling the world to turn the lens on amateur astronomers who have contributed to science.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) upended beliefs about the fundamental nature of the Universe, delivering evidence that the Universe was not slowing down, as gravity seemingly implied it must be, but expanding. 25 years later, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can help scientists make another breakthrough.
The spiral galaxy UGC 3912 doesn't look like much of a spiral in a new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Its unusual and distorted shape is due to a gravitational encounter with a separate galaxy.
The James Webb Space Telescope captured images of 19 nearby spiral galaxies as part of its long-term Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program.
A team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has proposed a design for a lunar-based multi-camera telescope array that could start small, but expand to be much larger over time.
NASA and the United States Postal Service (USPS) have teamed up on two new Priority Mail stamps that celebrate the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST/Webb).
While the James Webb Space Telescope has been busy helping scientists solve some of the greatest mysteries of the early Universe, the powerful telescope has also found that many distant galaxies have flattened oval disk and tube-like shapes, unlike the spiral and elliptical structures that are more typically seen in closer galaxies.
NASA has shared an image of a pair of galaxies that look like a penguin and its egg millions of light-years from Earth.
While the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has delivered many beautiful images, its primary mission is to probe the early Universe and help humanity solve some of the most significant questions it faces. Webb has delivered on this promise by revealing, for the first time, what is in the local environment of galaxies in the very earliest days of the Universe.
150 million light-years from Earth, a relatively small galaxy, UGC 5189A, was the site of a massive supernova, a super-powerful star explosion.
Fresh analysis of images taken by NASA's Voyager 2 probe has revealed that the planets Neptune and Uranus are actually far more similar in color than previously thought.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has wrapped up its first full year of scientific operations, and beyond "breaking" cosmology, the telescope has also delivered some of the most spectacular photos of deep space ever seen.
This year has been a fascinating one in the world of photography, and like every year, it was full of incredible highs, devastating lows, and everything in between.
Although sophisticated telescopes like the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble, and Spitzer have delivered people a more advanced understanding of the cosmos, the night sky and its infinite reach continue to enchant and amaze people from all walks of life, including artists.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was 30 years in the making and now as it orbits the Sun delivering incredible imagery of the Universe a photographer who documented its construction has revealed his jaw-dropping pictures.
By combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays.
It has been a busy week for the James Webb Space Telescope. Fresh images of the Crab Nebula and the Messier 83 spiral galaxy have been shared, showcasing incredible new views of the cosmos.
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a high-speed jet stream in Jupiter's lower stratosphere, approximately 25 miles above the planet's clouds.
Among the James Webb Space Telescope's many scientific objectives are providing astronomers and physicists unprecedented looks at areas where stars are being born. These stellar nurseries are not only of great scientific importance, but they are also visually spectacular.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured new images of the Orion Nebula that are visually stunning and a treasure trove for astronomers that shows cosmic objects that defy explanation.
National Geographic's special Space issue is available now, full of amazing stories and images all about space. From articles about how the James Webb Space Telescope is rewriting astronomy and astrophysics to humankind's return to the Moon as part of the NASA Artemis mission, the NatGeo space issue has something for everyone with interest in the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) and Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) have captured the graceful, well-defined bending arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51, also known as NGC 5194.
The James Webb Space Telescope has observed the Ring Nebula in spectacular, unprecedented detail using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) imagers.
"It is a very common misconception amongst people that the night sky has been explored in its entirety by the great professional space observatories like James Webb, Hubble, NASA, and ESA. People think there is nothing left for the average person to go out and discover in space. But this couldn't be further from the truth," says astrophotographer Bray Falls.
Webb's new infrared image of the galaxy cluster "El Gordo" ("the Fat One") showcases hundreds of galaxies, some of which have never been seen before in such detail. Using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb has used the gravitational lensing created by El Gordo to see distant background galaxies more clearly, offering scientists a unique look at the distant universe.
Nearly a month after launching from Cape Canaveral, the European Space Agency's new space probe, Euclid, has sent its first test images to Earth, and they are spectacular.
The James Webb Space Telescope recently captured a colorful image of the irregular galaxy NGC 6822. Using its Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), Webb observed different aspects of NGC 6822, including gas-rich regions and specific organic compounds critical for star and planetary formation.
Since it began its full scientific operations at the second Lagrange point (L2), about one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth last year, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has enchanted people around the world. Webb's photos have inspired many people to learn more about space and look at the night sky with unprecedented wonder and curiosity.
Astrophotographers are going to want to photograph Saturn's rings sooner rather than later since they're going to disappear in more ways than one after this summer.
Netflix unveiled its trailer for an upcoming documentary about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that will mark the groundbreaking camera's one-year anniversary.
While people in Canada and the United States recently celebrated national holidays with fireworks, the James Webb Space Telescope observed a violent cosmic explosion more than 120 million light-years from Earth.
After more than a decade of work by over 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes around the world, the European Space Agency (ESA) is mere hours away from launching its new space probe, Euclid, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
An international team of scientists has used the James Webb Space Telescope's incredible imaging instruments to detect a new carbon compound in space for the first time. The compound, known as methyl cation (CH3+), is a vital molecule for more complex carbon-based molecules.