Spiral Galaxy M74 - Bright knots of glowing gas light up the spiral arms, indicating a rich environment of star formation. M74 is located roughly 32 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pisces, the Fish.

NGC 1569 (Super Nova blast) - in this new image, taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the bubble structure is sculpted by the galactic super-winds and outflows caused by a colossal input of energy from collective supernova explosions that are linked with a massive episode of star birth. - Sky Image Lab

M104 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. - Sky Lab

Xena - Ten billion miles away lies an object officially called 2003 UB313, but commonly known as Xena. Xena was discovered a few years ago, and since then, it’s been carefully observed by a variety of telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope recently nailed down the diameter of Xena at 1,490 miles, larger than Pluto’s 1,422 miles. Xena is very reflective, almost like a mirror. From detailed observations of the reflected sunlight, it looks like Xena has a methane surface. It’s possible that methane froze out of Xena’s atmosphere, since it is so far away from the Sun.

NGC 346 - Hubble astronomers have uncovered, for the first time, a population of infant stars in the Milky Way satellite galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC, visible to the naked eye in the southern constellation Tucana), located 210,000 light-years away. - Sky Lab

NGC 2074 Seahorse in the LMC - The dark object toward the image right is actually an inanimate pillar of smoky dust about 20 light years long. The curiously-shaped dust structure occurs in our neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud, in a star forming region very near the expansive Tarantula Nebula. The energetic nebula is creating a star cluster named NGC 2074, whose center is visible just off the top of the image in the direction of the neck of the seahorse. The above representative color image was taken last year by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in honor of Hubble's 100,000th trip around the Earth. As young stars in the cluster form, their light and winds will slowly erode the dust pillars away over the next million years.

Hand of God Pulsar PSR B1509-58 - Seemingly, a Heavenly Hand reaches out to a spinning neutron star, releasing vast amounts of creative energy. Named by some as "The Hand of God". A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand.

A Tour of B1509

PIA8391 - When orbiting Saturn, be sure to watch for breathtaking superpositions of moons and rings. One such picturesque vista was visible recently to the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. In 2006 April, Cassini captured Saturn's A and F rings stretching in front of cloud-shrouded Titan. Near the rings and appearing just above Titan was Epimetheus, a moon which orbits just outside the F ring. The dark space in the A ring is called the Encke Gap, although several thin knotted ringlets and even the small moon Pan orbit there. Cassini and curious Earthlings await the coming Saturnian equinox this summer when the ring plane will point directly at the Sun. Mysterious spokes and telling shadows are expected to become visible that might give away more clues about the nature of Saturn's ring particles. Text: APOD Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA

Comet Ikeya-Zhang by Philipp Keller and Christian Fuchs - This image from March 3, 2002 captured the active comet's bright, condensed coma and a delightful array of subtle structures in its developing tail. The tail stretches for 5 degrees or so against a background of stars in the constellation Pisces. Cataloged as comet C/2002 C1, improved orbit determinations now make it seem very likely that Comet Ikeya-Zhang has been around here before. Refined calculations indicate this comet's last trip through the inner Solar System was 341 years ago, in 1661, when it was recorded as a bright comet.