The central part of this picture of the Milky Way galaxy, as taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, shows an amazing feature of our universe. The yellow parts of the infrared image, referred to as “yellowballs” by researchers, represent a phase of massive star formation in the galaxy.  They are at an intermediary stage of massive star formation taking place before these stars create an emptiness in the surrounding gas and dust. These yellowballs are many times (100s or 1000s) the size of our solar system.

It is amazing to think that we are able to study the demise of a galaxy and the subsequent interaction of gases with two adjacent galaxies. And oh yeah, these galaxies are located about 49+ million light-years away. The two galaxies are NGC 3226 (top) and NGC 3227 (bottom) with the areas in blue representing warm gas that is moving into the former.  This picture and the related data comes from the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes (including Spitzer’s infrared camera). The blue coloured areas represents cool hydrogen gas ‘seen’ via radio waves and the redder areas are warmer gas and dust captured via their infrared emissions.

A perfect picture in time for the holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus (or something else or nothing), this time of the year has a festive vibe in many places across our world and maybe even out of this world. This composite image from constellation Canis Major shows spiral galaxies in a one of a kind light show. NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are about 130 million light years away from Earth and were captured by three NASA missions. The x-ray spectrum data was provided by Chandra X-Ray observatory; visible spectrum by Hubble Space Telescope and infrared spectrum data by the Spitzer space telescope.

This composite, multi-spectrum picture of the Cigar galaxy (M82) includes images taken under the visible light spectrum by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona and in the x-ray spectrum by NuSTAR and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.  The magenta coloured center represents high-energy x-rays streaming from a rare and brightest to date pulsar which is also known as an ultraluminous x-ray source, or ULX.

Low-energy x-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are coloured blue while the higher-energy x-ray data from NuSTAR is the pink areas of the image. NASA’s NuSTAR mission spotted some pulsing x-rays from this ULX (called M82 X-2) leading scientists to discover this pulsar (a pulsar is a type of neutron star that sends out rotating beams of high-energy radiation).

What do new young stars look like as they heat up the surrounding space dust? The Spitzer Space Telescope looked out to the galaxy NGC 1291 and captured an infrared image of quite the firestorm created by this awe inspiring phenomenon. The distinctive outer red ring in this 12 billion year old galaxy from the Eridanus constellation, consists of new stars and is the “Ring of Fire“. The older stars lie in the central blue coloured “S” area of the galaxy and produce shorter-wavelength infrared light.

Since we are talking about a ring of fire, might as well also embed the classic Jonny Cash song of the same name

About 4.5 million light-years from Earth in the Sextans constellation lies the small Sextans A galaxy. The above picture is a composite multi-wavelength capture by the ESA’s Herschel space observation mission. In it the purple areas are gases; blue areas represent  young stars and the orange and yellow dots are newly formed stars heating up the dust. The environment in the Sextans A galaxy does not feature elements heavier than hydrogen and helium which is considered similar to that of our infant universe because it also lacks in heavy metals.

The Messier 82 (M82, NGC 3034) is a star-burst galaxy located about 12 million light-years away from Earth, in the Ursa Major constellation. The above image was captured using the x-ray spectrum by Chandra Observatory. The image below is of the same galaxy but this time it is a composite visible light image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

These pictures of the M82 galaxy were taken as part of NuSTAR;  a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured some astonishing views of the universe. This picture taken by its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 is no slouch either, capturing a couple of galaxies in one shot. The main feature is the spiral galaxy NGC 6872 located about 300 million light-years away in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock).

NGC 6872 is the second largest spiral galaxy discovered to date by humans. It spans over 500,000 light-years across, compared to the Milky way which is approximately 120,000 light years from end to end. This picture also captures the galaxy IC 4970 which can be seen causing a disruption in NGC 6872’s upper left spiral arm, as it transits through the larger spiral galaxy, helping it create new stars.

This magnificent galactic pyrotechnics light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves, and vast reservoirs of gas doing their magic in this spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way, but some 23 million light years away from Earth in NGC 4258 (also known as M106). The large “arms” of this spiral galaxy are believed to be shock waves, generated by large black hole at the center,  heating large amounts of gas equivalent to about 10 million suns.  In this composite image of NGC 4258;

• radio data from the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array is represented by regions that are purple in colour
• X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are in blue
• infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope is in red
• optical data derived from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are the yellow and blue areas

Given the vastness of space and the universe, it is difficult to fathom the size of or the dimensions of these regions. But measuring and mapping the magnetic field, from light which was polarized when it was emitted by or scattered off dust and other surfaces, makes it possible to create a “map” using the technique of convolution. The ESA and NASA joint venture Planck satellite helped compile this view of the magnetic field of the Milky Way galaxy.

The dark band running horizontally across the center of the image corresponds to the galactic plane.  The darker regions in the rest of the image correspond to stronger polarized emissions, and the striations indicate the direction of the magnetic field projected onto the plane of the sky.