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This figure shows the volcanic peak Idunn Mons (at 46 degrees south latitude, 214.5 degrees east longitude) in the Imdr Regio area of Venus. The colored overlay shows the heat patterns derived from surface brightness data collected by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS), aboard the European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft.

Hubble Sights Galaxy’s Celestial Sequins

An aerial view of Las Tintoreras, Isla Isabela in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

Hubble Views a Galaxy with an Active Center

Giant cavities in the X-ray emitting intracluster medium (shown in blue, as observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory) have been carved out by a black hole outburst. X-ray data are overlaid on top of optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (in red/orange), where the central galaxy that is likely hosting the culprit supermassive black hole is also visible.

Composite view of an observation showing thousands of galaxies in radio light and the MeerKAT radio telescope array in the South African Karoo semidesert. The brightest spots are luminous radio galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. The myriad faint dots are distant galaxies like our own Milky Way, too faint to have been detected before now. Because radio waves travel at the speed of light, this image is a time machine that samples the star formation history of the universe.

Forced magnetic reconnection, caused by a prominence from the Sun, was seen for the first time in images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. This image shows the Sun on May 3, 2012, with the inset showing a close-up of the reconnection event imaged by SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, where the signature X-shape is visible.

Methane leak visible from space

HAWK-I view of the Milky Way’s central region.