This image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The brightest center-left region is called 30 Dorad...

A bubbling cauldron of star birth is highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Massive stars have blown bubbles, or cavities, in the dust and gas -- a violent process that trigger...

This enormous section of the Milky Way galaxy is a mosaic of images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus are featured in this 1,000-square degree ...

This artist's concept, based on data from NASA's Kepler mission and ground-based telescopes, depicts an itsy bitsy planetary system -- so compact, in fact, that it's more like Jupiter and its moons th...

This image of the Eagle nebula shows the self-emission of the intensely cold nebula's gas and dust as never seen before; the nebula's intricate tendril nature, with vast cavities forms an almost cave-...

This image combines data from four different space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of the oldest documented example of a supernova, called RCW 86.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer observed the star-forming cloud NGC 281 in the constellation of Cassiopeia as it appears to be chomping through the cosmos, earning it the nickname the 'Pacm...

About 2,400 massive stars in the center of 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula, produce intense radiation and powerful winds as they blow off material seen as infrared emission from NASA's Spitzer Space ...

Seen as a red dusty cloud in this image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Puppis A is the remnant of a supernova explosion.

A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in the background, and the moon's north p...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its Oct. 1, 2011 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its jets of water vapor and ice.

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched trio...

This vibrant image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (detected by the multiband imaging photometer) shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on July 24, 2011. Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 15, and will spend a year orbiting the body.

This image from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory reveals a suspected ring at the center of our galaxy is warped for reasons scientists cannot explain. The ring is twisted so that part of it rises abov...

The 'Dumbbell nebula,' also known as Messier 27, pumps out infrared light in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Planetary nebulae are now known to be the remains of stars that once looked...

This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater beginning to catch morning light. NASA has selected Gale as the land...

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision, showing stellar infants that are lost behind dark clouds when viewed in visible light.

A huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

This artist's concept shows how a normal spiral galaxy around our local universe (left) might have looked back in the distant universe, when astronomers think galaxies would have been filled with larg...