Top 5 photos taken by NASA of Sun, galaxies, nebulae far from Earth | View Photos | Mint

NASA ImagesOur planet Earth is part of a huge solar system, located in a massive galaxy called the Milky Way. Our home galaxy is a large spiral galaxy with a star disk spanning more than 1,00,000 light years. Surprisingly, our galaxy is not alone, as there are many galaxies in space containing thousands of planets and stars.

Space agencies like NASA and ESA keep sharing images of the Sun, nebulae and our neighbouring galaxies, including one located thousands of light-years away from our own galaxy.

The Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way: it’s “only” 210,000 light-years away. Nestled within the Small Magellanic Cloud is this spectacular star cluster, releasing light and energy into the surrounding nebula.

This image from NASA’s Hubble telescope combines observations of the star cluster in ultraviolet and visible light; these bright blue stars are emitting ultraviolet light, which is captured by Hubble’s delicate instruments.

Studying this star cluster in ultraviolet light is helping scientists learn how the birth of stars shapes the interstellar space around them.

In these images from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy swallows streams of gas and dust.

⁣When supermassive black holes “eat”, the matter heats up just before it collapses, creating incredible light shows — sometimes brighter than an entire galaxy full of stars. But the black hole at the center of Andromeda (one of our closest galactic neighbors) is a “quiet” eater, meaning the little light it emits doesn’t change in brightness much. This suggests it’s eating a small but steady flow of matter, rather than large clumps.

This image shows X-ray bursts from the sun, based on observations from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by our Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO). Taken in 2014, this was the first picture of the sun taken by NuSTAR, covering the western part of the star.

⁣NuSTAR data, shown in green and blue, reveal high-energy emissions such as X-rays; the red channel shows ultraviolet light captured by SDO, indicating the presence of low-temperature material in the solar atmosphere. SDO continues to study the Sun from its location in geosynchronous orbit, 22,000 miles (or 36,000 km) above Earth — the third planet from our home star.⁣

This tangled planetary nebula is the final stage of a medium-sized star like our Sun — billions of trillions of years from now. While spending the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star pushes out a large portion of its outer layer, creating the twisted filaments you see here.

Don’t be confused by their name: planetary nebulae actually have nothing to do with planets. When early astronomers first observed them through telescopes, they appeared large and vaguely like some planets – and the name stuck. This clear image was taken through a much more powerful telescope: the NASA Hubble Observatory.

Eta Carinae may be about to explode, but no one knows when. It could happen in the relatively near future, although (astronomically) it could be tens of millions of years away. With a mass about 100 times that of our Sun, Eta Carinae is an excellent candidate for a full-blown supernova, or explosion of a star.

⁣The fireworks began in the 1840s when Eta Carinae underwent a massive explosion in Earth’s skies, called the Great Eruption, making it the second-brightest visible star for more than a decade. In fact, Eta Carinae was so bright that for a time it became an important navigational star for sailors in the southern seas. It is also currently known to be the only star that emits natural laser light.⁣