This broad vista of young stars and gas clouds in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This region is named LHA 120-N 11, informally known as N11, and is one of the most active star formation regions in the nearby Universe. This picture is a mosaic of ACS data from five different positions and covers a region about six arcminutes across.

Credit:
NASA, ESA and Jesus Maiz Apellaniz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Spain)

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit and a quarter of a century of new discoveries, stunning images and outstanding science.
The image's central region, containing the star cluster, blends visible-light data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and near-infrared exposures taken by the Wide Field Camera 3. The surrounding region is composed of visible-light observations taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Credit:
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team The original observations of Westerlund 2 were obtained by the science team: Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI), Elena Sabbi (STScI), Eva Grebel and Peter Zeidler (Astronomisches Rechen-Institut Heidelberg), Monica Tosi (INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna), Alceste Bonanos (National Observatory of Athens, Astronomical Institute), Carol Christian (STScI/AURA) and Selma de Mink (University of Amsterdam). Follow-up observations were made by the Hubble Heritage team: Zoltan Levay (STScI), Max Mutchler, Jennifer Mack, Lisa Frattare, Shelly Meyett, Mario Livio, Carol Christian (STScI/AURA), and Keith Noll (NASA/GSFC).

This is the image of a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. Located 10.5 light-years away, it is the closest known extrasolar planet to our solar system. The planet is in an elliptical orbit that carries it as close to the star as Earth is from the Sun, and as far from the star as Jupiter is from the Sun.

Epsilon Eridani is a young star, only 800 million years old. It is still surrounded by a disk of dust that extends 30 billion kilometres from the star. The disk appears as a linear sheet of reflecting dust in this view because it is seen edge-on from the planet's orbit, which is in the same plane as the dust disk.

The planet's rings and satellites are purely hypothetical in this view, but plausible. As a gas giant, the planet is uninhabitable for life as we know it. However, any moons might have conditions suitable for life.

Astronomers determined the planet's mass and orbital tilt in 2006 by using Hubble to measure the unseen planet's gravitational pull on the star as it slowly moved across the sky. Evidence for the planet first appeared in 2000 when astronomers measured a telltale wobble in the star.

Credit:
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)