First-known 'pinwheel' star system is beautiful, dangerous and doomed
Photos: Wonders of the universe
An artist's concept of the explosion of a massive star within a dense stellar environment.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
A star known as S0-2, represented as the blue and green object in this artist's illustration, made its closest approach to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way in 2018. This provided a test for Einstein's theory of general relativity.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
Galaxy NGC 5866 is 44 million light-years from Earth. It appears flat because we can only see its edge in this image captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
The Hubble Space Telescope took a dazzling new portrait of Jupiter, showcasing its vivid colors and swirling cloud features in the atmosphere.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
This is an artist's impression of the ancient massive and distant galaxies observed with ALMA.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
Glowing gas clouds and newborn stars make up the Seagull Nebula in one of the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms.
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Photos: Wonders of the universe
An artist's concept of what the first stars looked like soon after the Big Bang.