32 Of The Most Astounding Images Recovered From Deep Space

Published March 7, 2012
Updated November 9, 2023

A stunning peak at the most beautiful and astounding images of space in this All That Is Interesting photograph gallery.

Space is a wondrous place beyond our realm of understanding, and we've only begun to explore it even though it's been six decades since Russia launched the first artificial satellite — called Sputnik — into space.

Fortunately since then, we've had countless advances in space technology which have allowed us to explore our galaxy and beyond in ways we could have never imagined. The result of these deep-space explorations have conjured up incredible images from space, from the rocky uninhabited surface of Mars to the clashing of galaxies light-years away.

Discovering Amazing Objects In Space

Among the space objects captured by the satellites launched from Earth are planetary nebulas, glowing clouds made out of dust or gas and, surprisingly, do not involve any planets as the name suggests. The misnomer term was coined by William Herschel, who thought the newly discovered gassy objects resembled Uranus, which is essentially a giant ball of gas itself.

The first planetary nebula discovered was the Dumbbell Nebula, M27, by Charles Messier in 1764. Roughly 10,000 of these glowing objects are estimated to exist in the Milky Way alone, and only about 1,500 of them have been discovered thus far.

In this gallery of space pictures, you will find different kinds of nebulas — some more gaseous than others.

author
Natasha Ishak
author
A former staff writer for All That's Interesting, Natasha Ishak holds a Master's in journalism from Emerson College and her work has appeared in VICE, Insider, Vox, and Harvard's Nieman Lab.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
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Ishak, Natasha. "32 Of The Most Astounding Images Recovered From Deep Space." AllThatsInteresting.com, March 7, 2012, https://allthatsinteresting.com/space-pictures. Accessed August 22, 2025.