The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the iridescent tapestry of star birth in a neighbouring galaxy in this panoramic view of glowing gas, dark dust clouds, and young, hot stars.
Blue straggler stars are blue, bright stars, with a higher mass than the average for a cluster, and they are expected to sink towards the centre of a star cluster over time.
Researchers using a suite of telescopes including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have spotted a supermassive black hole blowing huge bubbles of hot, bright gas - one bubble is currently expanding outwards from the black hole, while another older bubble slowly fades away. This cosmic behemoth sits within the galaxy at the bottom of this image, which lies 900 million light-years from Earth and is known as SDSS J1354+1327. The upper, larger, galaxy is known as SDSS J1354+1328.
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.