The most beautiful space photos

On the international scene, 2022 was not a happy year to say the least. That does not apply to astronomy: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched at the end of 2021; in January it reached its orbit. From July 2022, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope will deliver the first images. Some of them can be seen here in this selection of the best space photos of the year.

NGC 6302, also known as the “Butterfly Nebula” in English, is about 4,000 light-years from Earth. The pretty structure, photographed by the Hubble telescope, is a planetary nebula – these have nothing to do with planets, but are made up of a shell of gas and plasma shed by an old star at the end of its evolution.

This image from the James Webb telescope shows NGC 3132, also known as the “Southern Ring Nebula”. This nebula, which is about 2,000 light-years from Earth, is also a planetary nebula. Its diameter is almost half a light-year; it expands at a speed of about 15 kilometers per second (54,000 mph). The bright star in the center is the companion of the dying star that provided the envelope of gas.

The barred spiral galaxy NGK 1512 is 33 million light-years from Earth and has a diameter of about 110,000 light-years (less than our Milky Way at 170,000 to 200,000 light-years). Unlike most galaxies, which have no rings, NGC 1512 has two: a core ring that surrounds the center and glows brightly, and a second, seen here at the edge of the image. It connects the ends of a diffuse bar that runs horizontally through the center of the galaxy.

This image, taken by the Hubble telescope and artistically edited, shows the als N11 known region in the Local Group of galaxies – a group of galaxies that also includes the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. N11 lies in the Milky Way’s neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

the if NGC 6357 Near the center of the cataloged Cancer Nebula is the open star cluster Pismis 24, where unusually bright and massive stars are formed. The Lobster Nebula, named after its shape and color, is about 8,000 light-years away and glows red because of the emission of ionized hydrogen gas.

This photo is actually from last year – astrophotographer Gerald Rhemann appropriately took it on December 25th. His image won the Royal Observatory Greenwich competition for the best astronomy photo of 2022. The image shows a piece of the comet’s tail becoming detached and being carried away by the solar wind. Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) was not discovered until January 2021; it came closest to Earth on December 12, 2021.

This Andrew McCarthy shot was also entered in the Royal Observatory Greenwich competition. She shows our sun; the fireball that provides our earth with heat and light.

Of the Rosette nebulaa diffuse emission nebula, is located in the constellation Unicorn and is illuminated by the open star cluster NGK 2244 lit in the middle. This shot of Alpha Zhang was shortlisted for the Royal Observatory Greenwich competition.

LDN 43also known as the Bat Nebula for obvious reasons, is one of the creepiest known nebulae in space. Located about 1,400 light-years away, the molecular cloud is reminiscent of a giant bat flying through a dark Halloween night. The 12 light-year long cosmic bat is a star-forming site; the bright lights in its “body” are dense gas nodes in which new stars have just formed.
>>> The higher resolution recording is available here.

Another participant from the Royal Observatory Greenwich: We see the nebula IC 1848 and its core IC1871, photographed by Nan Wang and Binyu Wang. The photographers call the photo “A little devil on a dragon’s head”. The structure is also referred to as “soul fog”; it is an emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia, about 7,500 light-years from Earth. Next to the soul nebula is the heart nebula. Both are sometimes referred to as “heart and soul.”

NGC6888 in the constellation Swan is more commonly known as the “Crescent Nebula” or “Crescent Moon Nebula”. This emission nebula is the result of shock waves emitted by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 going out. Wolf-Rayet stars are the exposed cores of formerly massive stars. This shot of Bray Falls was also entered into the Royal Observatory Greenwich competition.

This nebula is the first object on the famous list of the French astronomer Charles Messier, hence the name M1. It is more commonly known as the “Crab Nebula” or “Crab Nebula”. It is the remnant of a supernova observed on Earth in 1054, 6500 light-years away. The image combines image data from the entire electromagnetic spectrum and presents it as visible light. The bright dot in the center of the image is the Crab pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times per second.

Here we see it Crab Pulsar in the center of the Crab Nebula. It is the bright spot in the center of the gas vortex. The pulsar drives the nebula’s emission like a cosmic dynamo, sending a shock wave through the surrounding material, accelerating the electrons. The neutron star – the collapsed remnant of the supernova observed on Earth in 1054 – has more mass than the sun and is as dense as an atom’s nucleus. The outer parts of the Crab Nebula are the expanding remnants of the star’s supernova-blasted envelope.

The cartwheel system (ESO 350-40 or PGC 2248), seen here in an image from the Webb Telescope, is one of the ring galaxies whose light mainly comes from a ring of young stars. The galaxy in the constellation of Sculptor is half a billion light-years away – the light we see now was emitted just as life on Earth was just emerging from the sea. The galaxy gets its name from the spoke-like arms that reach from the center to the ring. It is the result of a galactic collision: a smaller galaxy rushed through its center and its gravity pulled stars and gas from the larger galaxy towards the center. This caused a wave of star formation that spread outward.

M94 or NGC 4736 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canis Hounds, located about 16 million light-years from the Milky Way. The close-up view from the Hubble Telescope highlights the galaxy’s compact, bright core, prominent inner dust lanes, and bluish ring of young, massive stars. The stars in the blue ring are all likely less than 10 million years old, suggesting that M94 is in a phase of rapid star formation.

The Eagle Nebula (M16 or IC 4703) has several prominent pillars of dust – known as the “Pillars of Creation” because of the new stars at their tops. One of them can be seen in this image from the Hubble telescope – it is somewhat reminiscent of an alien fairy. Admittedly, this fairy is ten light-years across and radiates hotter than ordinary fire. The column of dust, which is about 7,000 light-years away, is likely to evaporate in the next 100,000 years.

Located 4.6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major is a group of galaxies known as the Cheshire Cat group is known – in reference to the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. The image, which was taken in 2015 but was NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day on May 11, shows a special effect called gravitational lensing. The light from distant galaxies is distorted by a massive object. The large mass is made up of dark matter and the two large galaxies that make up the cat’s eyes and the smaller one that makes up its nose. The circular arcs are made up of the distorted light from four different background galaxies.