Image credit: Zhong Wu
Galaxies and stars undoubtedly offer a breathtaking view for us. The dynamic process of stars being born in stellar nurseries is a favorite subject of telescopes like Hubble, for their contrast of bright young stars and dark clouds. In their youth, stars collect clusters and sparkling starfields that provide mesmerizing shots. Lastly, star deaths are just as photogenic, producing sublime nebulae that allow us to project our imaginations onto their ambiguous shapes.
Astronomers have revealed some historic and alluring photos from the cosmos this year. They include the black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87. In addition, the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition also offered amazing shots. Chinese photographer Zhong Wu won the Galaxies category with an image called The Milky Ring seen in the thumbnail, stitched together from 1,000 shots of the Milky Way taken from China and New Zealand – meaning it was captured from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Apart from that, these are some of the most insane pictures taken this year. Credit to New Atlas for picking these out.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, Z.Levay 
SPHERE, ESO/Ginski et al 
NASA John Hopkins APL/ Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher 
ESA/ Hubble and NASA, R. Cohen NASA 
NASA, ESA and A.Nota (STScl/ESA) 
ESO/TIMER Survey 
NASA/JPL-Caltech-SwRI/MSSS Image Processing: Navaneeth Krishnan S 
ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit 
NASA 
Terry Hancock 
ESA/ Hubble & NASA F. Pacaud, D.Coe 
EHT Collaboration 
Chandra: NASA/CXC/RIKEN/T.Sato et al, NuSTAR: NASA/NuSTAR; Hubble: NASA/STScl 
ESA/Hubble & NASA, Dark Energy, J.Dalcanton 
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Adam Block/ Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/ University of Arizona 
ESA/Hubble, NASA, and Toshiya Ueta (University of Denver), Hyosun Kim (KASI) 
ESO/PHANGS 
ESA/ Hubble & NASA, J.C. Tan (Chalmers University and University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Chalmers University); Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt
