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  This Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods — RS Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 or so days.
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  Originally suspected to be the first directly detected planet outside our Solar System follow up observations have shown that the object is most likely a background star whose light is has been dimmed and reddened by interstellar dust.
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  This is an artist impression of a planet that is four times the mass of Jupiter and orbits 8 billion kilometres from a brown-dwarf companion (the bright red object seen in the background).
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  NASA scientists detected a stratosphere on WASP-33b by measuring the drop in light as the planet passed behind its star (top). Temperatures in the low stratosphere rise
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  The spiral galaxy NGC 2008 sits centre stage, its ghostly spiral arms spreading out towards us, in this image captured
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  Foreseeing the paths of three orbiting objects sometimes requires precision better than the quantum limit