10 stunning images of galaxies captured by NASA telescopes

Chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole.

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually 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 showin in this composite image of Centaurus A.

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.

The immense Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or simply M31, is captured in this image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

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