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This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

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Credit: Tim Doucette.

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This 2016 Curiosity rover selfie shows the vehicle at the “Okoruso” drilling site on Mount Sharp’s Naukluft Plateau. The Martian scene is a mosaic of images taken with the arm-mounted Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

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A nearby planetary

Andrea Arbizzi from Modena, Italy

In May 1980, Alois Purgathofer and Ronald Weinberger discovered this faint planetary nebula, now known as Purgathofer-Weinberger 1 (PuWe 1). It lies just 1,300 light-years away in Lynx and is the second-largest known planetary in apparent size, with a diameter two-thirds that of the Full Moon. The imager took 28 hours of exposure with a 3.5-inch scope and a dual-band filter.