This map shows the distribution of water in the stratosphere of Jupiter as measured with the Herschel space observatory.

Stunning new view from ESA’s Herschel space observatory of the iconic Horsehead Nebula in the context of its surroundings.

This artist's impression shows the "starburst" galaxy HFLS3. The galaxy appears as little more than a faint, red smudge in images from the Herschel space observatory.

W3 is an enormous stellar nursery about 6,200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy's main spiral arms, which hosts both low- and high-mass star formation.

Dense envelopes of gas and dust surround the fledging stars known as protostars, making their detection difficult until now. The discovery gives scientists a window into the earliest and least understood phases of star formation.

One of the great curiosities in solar science is that our Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – is heated to millions of degrees when its visible surface is ‘only’ about 6000 degrees.

This graph shows how the average rate of star formation for three different samples of galaxies varies as a function of the power of the active galactic nuclei hosted at their centers.

This artist's illustration shows a planetary disk that weighs the equivalent of 50 Jupiter-mass planets.

In this new view of the Andromeda galaxy from the Herschel space observatory, cool lanes of forming stars are revealed in the finest detail yet.

Herschel Space Observatory captured asteroid Apophis in its field of view during the approach to Earth on 5/6 January 2013.

This artist's concept illustrates an asteroid belt around the bright star Vega.

Herschel has produced an intricate view of the remains of a star that died in a stellar explosion a millennium ago. It has provided further proof that the interstellar dust which lies throughout our Galaxy is created when massive stars reach the end of their lives.

This image shows a three-color infrared view of the supernova remnant W44 and surrounding regions. It was taken by the European Space Agency's Herschel mission, which has important contributions from NASA.

The Cygnus OB2 star cluster is about 5,000 light years from Earth and contains many massive young stars.

This composite image shows a superbubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The galaxy Messier 100, or M100, shows its swirling spiral in this infrared image from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope. The arcing spiral arms of dust and gas that harbor starforming regions glow vividly when seen in the infrared.

How is it that two glowing globs of gas that look completely different can actually be basically the same thing? In the case of planetary nebulae like IC 4406 and NGC 2392, all it may take is a simple shift of perspective, provided here in infrared images taken by NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope.

This image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, or M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-rays from four of NASAs space telescopes. This multi-spectral view shows that both young and old stars are evenly distributed along M101s tightly-wound spiral arms. Such composite images allow astronomers to see how features in one part of the spectrum match up with those seen in other parts.

This new view of the Cygnus-X star-formation region by Herschel highlights chaotic networks of dust and gas that point to sites of massive star formation.

A massive star-forming region located about 160,000 light years away.

Inner structural features seen in this image are helping scientists to understand the mechanisms and interactions within the galaxy, as are the jets seen extending over thousands of light years from the black hole believed to be at its heart.

This infrared image from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, also shows the “light echoes” of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant.

This new view of the Orion nebula highlights fledging stars hidden in the gas and clouds. It shows infrared observations taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Herschel mission, in which NASA plays an important role.

This view of the Eagle nebula combines data from almost opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum. Herschel captured longer-wavelength, or far, infrared light, and the space telescope XMM-Newton imaged X-rays.

This enormous section of the Milky Way Galaxy is a mosaic of images from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 1994.

Stunning new view from ESA’s Herschel space observatory of the iconic Horsehead Nebula in the context of its surroundings.

Kappa Coronae Borealis and its dust disk.

Dense envelopes of gas and dust surround the fledging stars known as protostars, making their detection difficult until now. The discovery gives scientists a window into the earliest and least understood phases of star formation.

This artistís impression of Herschel is set against an image captured by the observatory, showing baby stars forming in the Rosette nebula.

This illustration shows a galaxy in the early Universe that is releasing material via two symmetric outflows triggered by the supermassive black hole hosted at its center.

This artist's concept illustrates the planet-forming disk around a young star called TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the Hydra, or Sea Serpent, constellation.

The ring-like swirls of dust filling the Andromeda galaxy stand out colorfully in this new image from the Herschel Space Observatory.

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is seen here in a new view from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation.

Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a large asteroid belt around the bright star Vega, as illustrated here at left in brown.

This composite image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3627, located about 30 million light years from Earth.

This artist's impression shows the orbits of planets and comets around the star 61 Vir, superimposed on a view from the Herschel Space Telescope.

Supernova remnant W44 is the focus of this new image created by combining data from ESA's Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories.

A dying star is throwing a cosmic tantrum in this combined image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX).

The galaxy Messier 100, or M100, shows its swirling spiral in this infrared image from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope. The arcing spiral arms of dust and gas that harbor starforming regions glow vividly when seen in the infrared.

This image of the Vela C Region demonstrates Herschel’s ability to trace both high- and low-mass star formation at a range of evolutionary stages, from cool filaments, pre-stellar cores and protostars to more evolved regions containing dust that has been gently heated by hot stars.

This view of the Flame nebula from WISE is an expanded view over one previously released of this enormous space cloud .

The Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars.

Supermassive black holes are believed to reside in the hearts of all large galaxies. When gas falls upon these monsters, the materials are accelerated and heated around the black hole, releasing great torrents of energy.

Infrared view of the Fomalhaut dust disk taken by the Herschel Space Observatory.

This Herschel Space Observatory image of Centaurus A combines long-wavelength infrared data from its Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) taken at 100 microns, and its Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) instruments at 250, 350 and 500 microns.

This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), part of its All-Sky Data Release.

Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions.

This Herschel image of the Eagle nebula shows the self-emission of the intensely cold nebula's gas and dust as never seen before. Each color shows a different temperature of dust, from around 10 degrees above absolute zero for the red, up to around 40 Kelvin, or minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit, for the blue.

Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light, this nearby dwarf galaxy looks like a fiery, circular explosion. Rather than fire, however, those ribbons are actually giant ripples of dust spanning tens or hundreds of light-years.