This Just in from Space: A 'Valentine Rose' Nebula

This cluster of stars is 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), shown here in an image released by the European Southern Observatory on Jan. 10. A globular cluster is a huge, spherical cloud of old stars bound together by gravity. This cluster contains millions of stars and is located around 15,000 light-years away from Earth.

On Dec. 18, NASA released this rare view of saturn, taken from the Cassini spacecraft. The image was taken while Cassini was in the planet's shadow, so Saturn and its rings are backlit by the sun. The last time a similar view of Saturn was captured was in September 2006.

Also visible in this image on the left side of the planet are two of Saturn's moons, Enceladus and Tethys.

A new, incredibly rare kind of galaxy has been discovered by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory. The "green bean galaxies" glow in intense light emitted from fading black holes within. Only 17 galaxies with these properties have been confirmed.

On Nov. 27, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image of an enormous cyclone stirring over Saturn's north pole. The cyclone, which may be a permanent feature in the planet's atmosphere, is 1,200 miles across, with winds rotating from 325 miles per hour to 1,100 miles per hour -- much bigger and faster than any hurricane on Earth.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this colorful view of the center of globular cluster NGC 6362 and released the image on Nov. 2. Globular clusters are some of the oldest structures in the universe, and the stars in NCG 6362 are around 10 billion years old.

On Oct. 25, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope released a new view of a giant elliptical galaxy. The monstrous galaxy (at the center of the image) is about 10 times the diameter of the Milky Way. The galaxy's core, which may include one or more black holes, measures about 10,000 light years across and is the largest ever seen.

New observations have revealed an unexpected spiral structure in the material around the old star R Sculptoris. It's likely caused by a hidden companion star orbiting the star. This image, released by the ESO on Oct. 10, shows the shell around R Sculptoris, which shows up as the outer circular ring, as well as the spiral structure in the inner material.

Located 650 light years from Earth, the Helix nebula is the cosmic remains of a dying star. In this combined image released Oct. 3 from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, the star's dusty outer layers glow from ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by its stellar core.

On Oct. 1, NASA released this shot of Saturn's moon Dione, taken from the Cassini spacecraft. The image shows a ray crater (upper-left corner) and ejecta rays, the bright material spreading from the crater.

On Sept. 3, NASA released a sparkling picture of the center of globular cluster M 4. The cluster contains tens of thousands of stars including many white dwarfs, which are the cores of ancient dying stars. Also in M 4 is a planet called PSR B1620-36 b, which is 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter and 13 billion years old -- three times the age of our Solar System.

The ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile captured this image of a bright feather-like cloud of glowing gas. Called the Pencil Nebula, this streak of vibrant red and blue is part of a ring of wreckage resulting from a supernova explosion that occurred 11,000 years ago.

On Sept. 6, NASA released this shot of an odd pairing of galaxies called Arp 116. The image, taken by NASA's Hubble Telescope, shows giant elliptical galaxy Messier 60 (M60) beside a much smaller spiral galaxy called NGC 4647. The smaller galaxy is two-thirds the size of M60, roughly the same size as the Milky Way and about 63 million light years from Earth.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission recently discovered thousands of newfound supermassive blackholes and galaxies -- called Hot DOGs. These dust-obscured galaxies are twice as hot as similar objects and among the most luminous, brightest galaxies known. Some emit more than 1,000 times more energy than the Milky Way. On Aug. 29, NASA released images from the telescope, marking the new Hot DOGs with magenta symbols.

On Aug. 1, the European Southern Observatory released the most detailed image ever taken of the galaxy NGC 1187. The spiral, which is about 60 million light years away, has had two supernovae explosions since 1982. A supernova is a violent stellar explosion that can radiate as much energy in a short period as the sun is expected to emit in its entire lifetime.

On Jul 20, NASA released the highest-resolution images eve taken of the sun's corona. The corona is the plasma atmosphere around the sun, usually only visible during solar eclipses. The High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, captured this detailed shot.

The Hubble Space Telescope released this detailed image of part of the spiral galaxy NGC 4565 on July 13. The bright galaxy appears in a narrow streak of light on the sky, inspiring the nickname the Needle Galaxy. Like the Milky Way, the Needle Galaxy galaxy is an edge-on spiral galaxy, giving astronomers a view directly into its disc.

On July 9, NASA released the first great image of Saturn's rings in two years. The Cassini spacecraft recently resumed an orbit that allowed it to capture this shot, taken on May 23, of the outer A ring and the F ring. Saturn's moon, Pan, is also visible in the picture, appearing in the Encke gap, the dark space between the rings.

Another recent image from Saturn. NASA's Cassini spacecraft shot this image of the planet and the shadow of its rings. An elongated shadow of the moon Enceladus is visible near the bottom of the planet. NASA released the image on July 2.

On July 2, Hubble Space Telescope posted this portrait of dying star Camelopardalis (U Cam for short) as it released a spherical shell of gas. U Cam is becoming increasingly unstable, and every few thousand years the red giant's core fuses and it expels stellar material in these eruptions. Although the star itself is small enough to fit into a single pixel of the photo, its brightness makes it appear much larger than it is.

On July 5, NASA released this panoramic view of Mars, which was assembled from 817 images taken by Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8. While stationed on the rim of ancient Endeavour Crater, Opportunity captured the view of the largest impact crater NASA has explored by rover.