Its light has taken some 2.5 billion years to reach us. Despite this great distance, it is still one of the closest quasars to our home. It was the first quasar ever to be identified, and was discovered in the early 1960s by astronomer Allan Sandage.
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
Injecting a swarm of nanoparticles into the blood of someone who has suffered a brain injury may one day help to limit the damage - if experimental results in mice can be translated to humans. In mice, these nanoparticles seemed to reduce dangerous swelling by distracting immune cells from rushing to an injured brain.
This image shows a 'hot Jupiter' planet known as HD 189733b orbiting its star, HD 189733. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope measured the actual visible light colour of the planet, which is deep blue. This colour is not due to the presence of oceans, but is caused by the effects of a scorching atmosphere where silicate particles melt to make 'raindrops' of glass that scatter blue light more than red light.