OUR UNIVERSE IS an incredibly beautiful place. We should probably take care of it.
Look at these huge, breathtaking photos of space:
1. ‘Cosmic fairy lights’
A view of the Messier 5 cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars. The cluster is around 160 light-years across, or around 1,526,000,000,000,000km.
2. A glowing spiral galaxy
A view into the heart of a spiral galaxy, about 150million light years away. That’s roughly 1,419,000,000,000,000,000,000km.
3. The ‘rose’ of a polar storm
The spinning vortex of a polar storm on Saturn, as captured in a false-colour image from the Cassini spacecraft. This circle is around 2,000km across and the stormclouds are moving at around 530kph.
4. Stars being formed
This image shows the formation of stars in a galaxy called M83, or the Southern Pinwheel. This is one of the closest spiral galaxies visible in the sky at just 141,900,000,000,000,000,000km away.
5. A nebula of space dust
This is the ‘Witch Head’ nebula. It appears to glow because huge clouds of dust are being illuminated by the light of giant nearby stars.
6. Solar flares
A solar flare erupts from the surface of our sun, in this image combining three photographs.
7. The rainbow in a giant space nebula
In this composite photo of the Ring Nebula, visible light images are combined with data from the infra-red spectrum to create a stunning rainbow image.
8. A star shoots a jet into space
As part of its formation process, a star shoots out a glowing violet jet of material at the top left of this image. The material is moving at hundreds of kilometres per second.
9. And an image of the cosmos as we know it
A cross section of the entire cosmos, showing approximately half the way across the observable universe. Taken by the Hubble telescope.
