What better way to end than with some examples of said beauty and utility? After all that reading, we'll leave you with a few glamour shots of our favorite nebula: Messier 16, better known as the ...

The ring-shaped clouds around the nebula RCW 120 were detected by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in this composite image. The Black Eye Galaxy is a relatively isolated spiral galaxy 17 million ...

The Chandra team described it as resembling a neon purple mushroom surrounded by a web of veins and filaments. The Cat's Paw Nebula is a star-forming region that resembles a feline foot.