Tichošlápek

Astronaut Kate Rubins on the International Space Station shared this image of moonrise.

Shining like a beacon, this amazing lighthouse image appears to shine right at the Milky Way in the night sky.

Two stars shine through the centre of a ring of cascading dust in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The star system is named DI Cha, and while only two stars are apparent, it is actually a quadruple system containing two sets of binary stars.

As this is a relatively young star system it is surrounded by dust. The young stars are moulding the dust into a wispy wrap.

The host of this alluring interaction between dust and star is the Chamaeleon I dark cloud — one of three such clouds that comprise a large star-forming region known as the Chamaeleon Complex. DI Cha's juvenility is not remarkable within this region. In fact, the entire system is among not only the youngest but also the closest collections of newly formed stars to be found and so provides an ideal target for studies of star formation.

This image shows the galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away.

Within the bright ring around Messier 94 new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it – thanks to this, this feature is called a starburst ring. The cause of this peculiarly shaped star-forming region is likely a pressure wave going outwards from the galactic centre, compressing the gas and dust in the outer region. The compression of material means the gas starts to collapse into denser clouds. Inside these dense clouds, gravity pulls the gas and dust together until temperature and pressure are high enough for stars to be born.

The galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 is home to one of the most powerful eruptions ever observed. X-rays detected by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue) show the hot gas that comprises much of the mass of this enormous object. Within the Chandra data, holes, or cavities, can be seen. These cavities were created by an outburst from a supermassive black hole at the center of the cluster, which ejected the enormous jets detected in radio waves (pink) detected by the Very Large Array. These data have been combined with optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope of galaxies in the cluster and stars in the field of view (orange).

This image is part of a collection of new images released from the Chandra archive to celebrate American Archive Month. Chandra has collected data for over sixteen years on thousands of different objects throughout the universe.

Messier 42 also know as M42 or Orion nebula.

In the Center of the Trifid Nebula

Clouds of glowing gas mingle with dust lanes in the Trifid Nebula, a star forming region toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). In the center, the three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear on the right, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, also known as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulae known. The nebula lies about 9,000 light years away and the part pictured here spans about 10 light years.

This image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler.

Astronaut Terry Virts, aboard the International Space Station, shared this picture yesterday, stating this was "the view of our Galaxy from space."

Normally, the reason you can't see stars in high oblique photos from the space station is that the shutter speed is too fast. Fast shutter speeds are used to eliminate blur from the motion of the orbiting outpost. One exception to this rule is when astronauts use camera settings specifically to photograph features such as the Aurora and the Milky Way. The crew must use slower shutter speeds in order to capture the light of the aurora. In these cases stars also show up in the photograph. The photos are also slightly blurry because very long exposures are needed to capture these dim nighttime features.