7 beautiful Milky Way images shared by NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Using infrared images captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have found that the Milky Way’s graceful spiral shape is mainly made up of just two major arms extending from a central bar of stars.

The dazzling galaxy NGC 1546 takes center stage in Hubble’s first new image after switching to its new “one-gyro mode,” marking the end of the telescope’s nearly month-long pause.

This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveals a massive star cluster within the Milky Way galaxy.

The Pillars of Creation in the Milky Way is a region where young stars are being born or have just emerged from their dusty cocoons as they continue to develop.

A dwarf galaxy is a much smaller galaxy that contains anywhere from around 1,000 to several billion stars, in contrast to the Milky Way, which holds between 200 and 400 billion stars.

The black hole might have a mini-jet that’s been active for thousands of years, shaped by its magnetic fields to form narrow beams of ionizing radiation.

Astronomers have discovered that it’s a large spiral galaxy—much like many others—but with distinct features that reveal its own unique cosmic history.

Credit: NASA