ALT This is a composite image combining X-ray and optical light. Towards the center of the image is a fluffy ring that appears to contain every color in the rainbow. Starting with the innermost portion of the ring, the colors flow outward like mist in shades of red, then orange, then yellow, then green, blue, and purple. In the center of the ring there is a blue structure that resembles lightning. At the lower right of the image, a lime green cloud in the shape of an arc is present. Its inner edge is highlighted in shades of red and pink. Stars of all shapes, sizes, and distances are present throughout the entire image to dazzling effect.

ALT This is an X-ray image of Tycho's supernova remnant. The remnant is mostly round in shape, and it resembles a fluffy, clumpy cotton ball set against a black background. Its surface is a mottled mix of reds, pinks, greens, blues, and yellows with tufts of color tightly packed into the fuzzy-looking ball.

ALT A close-up image toward the center of Terzan 5 in X-ray and optical light. The entire image glitters with stars of various sizes in shades of gold, blue, and white. The highest concentration of stars is in the center of the image, where pink X-ray sources are also clustered. At our upper left is a giant foreground star, with prominent diffraction spikes extending outward from the source.

ALT This image of NGC 6338 contains X-ray data from Chandra, in red, that shows hot gas as well as cooler gas detected with Chandra and XMM-Newton, in blue. Two blue regions surround white cores. The blue regions resemble two round pieces of a snowman stacked on one another, almost touching, with the larger snowball on the bottom. Surrounding the blue regions, more strongly on the left and the right, are somewhat transparent red clouds. Many galaxies and stars of varying sizes, shown in optical light from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, are scattered throughout the image and can be viewed even where the blue and red clouds are present.