1. Earth
(Taken by the astronauts on the Columbia space shuttle in 1991.)
2. Partial solar eclipse
This particular eclipse lasted for two-and-a-half hours — the longest eclipse we’ve recorded. (Taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Jan. 30, 2014.)
3. Mercury
This photo — one of the closest we have of the planet — shows the crater Kuiper as a bright dot below the center. (Taken by the spacecraft MESSENGER on Oct. 6, 2008)
4. The stellar core of the Helix Nebula
A nebula is all the layers of dust, gases, and plasma that are emitted when a star dies. (Taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Galaxy Evolution Explorer in 2012.)
5. Stephen’s Quintet
Stephen’s Quintet is a group of five galaxies roughly 300 million light years away from Earth. The blue-ish one in the lower left, though, is a slight outlier — about 40 million light years away from the other four. (Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.)
6. Old stars in the Tarantula Nebula
The Tarantula Nebula is considered the brightest nebula in Earth’s vicinity, and this image — covering an area of about 100 light years across — shows stars that are anywhere from 2 to 25 million years old. (Created from data from the Hubble Space Telescope recorded in 2009.)
7. “Mystic Mountain” in Carina Nebula
Mystic Mountain is basically a tower of gas and dust, in a nebula which is 7,500 light years from Earth. (Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2010.)
8. A “caterpillar” of gas and dust
The “caterpillar” is a star in its beginning stages, and this one is 4,500 light years from Earth, and a full light year long. (This composite is created from data from the Hubble Telescope in 2006 and the Isaac Newton Telescope in 2003.)
9. Eta Carinae
The Eta Carinae (that bright star in the center) is one of the most massive stars in the galaxy — about 100 times the mass of the sun, and a million times brighter. (Taken in 2005 by the Spitzer Telescope.)
10. The Trapezium in the Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula contains thousands of stars, and more than 3000 are shown in this image. The Trapezium, the bright part in the center, is where the most massive stars are. (This composite — made of 520 frames — was captured by the Hubble between 2004 and 2005.)
11. Witch Head Nebula
The nebula — technically called IC 2118, but called the Witch Head Nebula for its resemblance to the profile of a stereotypical witch — is located 900 light years from Earth. (Taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and released on Halloween 2013.)
12. Cassiopeia and Cepheus
This composite image of the two constellations is made up of thousands of individual frames, all captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2010.
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