Igor Chekalin of Russia selected the data used for this ethereal image of the Orion Nebula, as part of the Hidden Treasures 2010 competition of the European Southern Observatory.
The largest of the nearby galaxies, M87, now has the largest known black hole. It contains 6.6 billion times the mass of our sun and could swallow our solar system whole.
The most massive black holes began growing at a very fast rate when the universe was only about 1.2 billion years old, according to a new study by astronomers in Tel Aviv.
A new image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey consists of 1.2 trillion pixels and covers a third of the night sky. It captures half a billion individual stars and galaxies.
Here's the latest Hubble Space Telescope on the green cloud of gas known as Hanny’s Voorwerp. The cloud now appears to be lit up by the bright light of a nearby quasar, and shows signs of ongoing star formation.
An amazing collection of images of the partial solar eclipse of Jan. 4, 2011 can be found at The Big Picture. The eclipse was seen in Earth's eastern hemisphere.