An unprecedented view from the Gemini South telescope in Chile probes a swarm of young and forming stars that appear to have been shocked into existence. The group, known as N159W, is located some 158,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite to our Milky Way Galaxy. Despite the group’s distance beyond our galaxy the extreme resolution of the image presents researchers with a fresh perspective on how prior generations of stars can trigger, or shock, the formation of a new generation of stars.

This photo show a T-Tauri star named CVSO 30, located approximately 1200 light-years away from Earth. In 2012, astronomers found an exoplanet (CVSO 30b), orbiting the star very close and quickly at a mere 11 hours. Recently, astronomers found a second planet (CVSO 30c, located uppper left) orbiting at a snail’s pace --- taking 27,000 years to complete a rotation. Astronomers are still exploring how such an exotic system came to form in such a short timeframe, as the star is only 2.5 million years old. It’s possible the two planets interacted at some point in the past, scattering off one another and settling in their current extreme orbits.

The false color image from Sentinel-2A showcases the southern-central edge of the Tibetan Plateau, the highest and large plateau in the world with an elevation of almost three miles and 965,000 square miles. Part of the Himalayas is visible along the bottom, with the distinct pattern of water runoff from the mountains.

This colorful and star-studded view of the Milky Way galaxy was captured when the Hubble Space Telescope pointed its cameras towards the constellation of Sagittarius. Blue stars can be seen scattered across the frame, set against a distant backdrop of red-hued cosmic companions. This blue litter most likely formed at the same time from the same collapsing molecular cloud.

Marathon Valley on Mars opens northeastward to a view across the floor of Endeavour Crater in this scene from the panoramic camera of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The scene merges multiple Pancam exposures taken during the period April 16 through May 15, 2016, corresponding to sols (Martian days) 4,347 through 4,375 of Opportunity's work on Mars.

The is a color composite image of distant galaxy SXDF-NB1006-2. Light from ionized oxygen detected by ALMA is shown in green. Light from ionized hydrogen detected by the Subaru Telescope and ultraviolet light detected by the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) are shown in blue and red.