In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of the legendary NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on 24 April, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651) located 3400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The photogenic nebula is a favourite target of amateur astronomers.

Astronomers recently used a trove of archived images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to visually snag a largely unseen population of smaller asteroids in their tracks. The treasure hunt required pursuing 37 000 Hubble images spanning 19 years. The payoff was finding 1701 asteroid trails, with 1031 of those asteroids uncatalogued. About 400 of these uncatalogued asteroids are about below a kilometre in size.

Jets emerge from the cocoon of a newly forming star to blast across space, slicing through the gas and dust of a shining nebula, in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

It takes two to tango, but in the case of brown dwarfs that were once paired as binary systems, that relationship doesn’t last for very long, according to a recent survey using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images, taken on 5–6 January 2024, that capture both sides of the planet. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer Solar System planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy programme (OPAL). This is because these large worlds are shrouded in clouds and hazes stirred up by violent winds, leading to a kaleidoscope of ever-changing weather patterns.