10 stunning images of galaxies captured by NASA

The image reveals new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole.

This landscape of 'mountains' and 'valleys' speckled with glittering stars is the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.

Our Milky Way galaxy is ablaze with dust in this all-sky map from Planck, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with important NASA contributions.

A festive portrait of our Milky Way galaxy shows a mishmash of gas, charged particles, and several types of dust.

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas.

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) observed magnetic fields shown in this composite image of Centaurus A.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope assembled a comprehensive picture of the evolving universe – among the most colorful deep space images ever captured at the time.

The magnificent spiral arms of the nearby galaxy Messier 81 are highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

This panorama provides an unprecedented X-ray view above and below the center of the Milky Way.

Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our galaxy.