13 of the most incredible pictures from space

Much of what is seen in space is a window through time

Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope captured the tiny moon Phobos during its orbital trek around Mars. Because the moon is so small, it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures. The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus. Phobos is one of the smallest moons in the solar system. It is so tiny that it would fit comfortably inside the Washington, DC. Courtesy: Nasa

This is the first image of Saturn's ultraviolet aurora taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in October 1998, when Saturn was a distance of 810 million miles (1.3 billion km) from Earth. Courtesy: Nasa

Astronomers are using the Nasa / ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras — stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere — on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter. Courtesy: Nasa

This colourful bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), roughly 6000 light-years away from us. Courtesy: Nasa

This majestic false-colour image from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope shows 'mountains' where stars are born. These towering pillars of cool gas and dust are illuminated at their tips with light from warm embryonic stars. Courtesy: Nasa

This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope photograph captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Courtesy: Nasa

These eerie, dark, pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the Eagle Nebula (also called M16), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens. Courtesy: Nasa

In this image provided by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Omega Nebula (M17) resembles the fury of a raging sea, showing a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulphur. The nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, is a hotbed of newly born stars residing 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Courtesy: Nasa

Nasa / ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Courtesy: Nasa

The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's Eye. Courtesy: Nasa

The Cone Nebula resides 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. Radiation from hot, young stars (located beyond the top of the image) has slowly eroded the nebula over millions of years. Courtesy: Nasa

This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective: our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star. Hot blue gas near the energising central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary. Courtesy: Nasa

This image shows the galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring around Messier 94 new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it – thanks to this, this feature is called a starburst ring. The cause of this peculiarly shaped star-forming region is likely a pressure wave going outwards from the galactic centre, compressing the gas and dust in the outer region. Courtesy: Nasa

In our locked down, locked in world, turned away from each other and contemplating no further than the following day, one great horizon stills call to our imagination. Space.

Such wonders are here, created by forces we still barely understand. Space telescopes show us interstellar nebula from incalculable distance and incompressible size. We chase comets and explore asteroids. Probes climb far distant mountains, roam ancient deserts, circle moons and planets once invisible to the human eye.

Much of what we see is actually a window through time, the light from millions of years ago, when our Earth was still a place of dinosaurs and primeval  forests. Stars are born, as others die in the universe’s eternal cycle of life. This is a terrible, awesome beauty, a reminder of our insignificance but also the unquenchable human spirit.

The search for answers has not been easy. Rockets explode, probes crash, machines fail. Sometimes, tragically, lives have been lost. But the quest goes on. Last week a prototype of Starship, the spacecraft SpaceX is building to fly people to Mars, exploded in flames in a test landing.

This is the second failed attempt in only two months. But a third Starship is already on the launchpad. That may also fail. So the SpaceX founder Elon Musk will try again, until he succeeds.

Our adventures into space have shown us the majesty of creation, but also taught us something about ourselves.

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty," Vincent Van Gogh, painter of The Starry Night, wrote to his brother in 1888.

“But the sight of the stars makes me dream.”