On August 25, 2026, NASA published a new gallery of 16 galaxy images. Each one is assembled from data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and observations from other telescopes — Hubble, James Webb, IXPE, Swift, NuSTAR, and ground-based instruments. The result is a collection in which spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies look quite different from how they appear in familiar visible light.
Astronomers divide galaxies into three main types. Spirals, like our Milky Way, have arms extending from the center. Ellipticals are usually older and often form after mergers. Irregulars have varied appearances and turbulent processes. The new gallery features all three categories. Chandra's X-ray data, accumulated over decades of work, reveal what is hidden from ordinary telescopes: gas heated to millions of degrees, remnants of exploded stars, X-ray binary systems, and activity from supermassive black holes.
Here are just a few examples. NGC 1672 is a barred spiral galaxy that funnels gas toward its center. X-ray emission highlights growing black holes along the bar. M33, a nearby spiral galaxy seen almost face-on, clearly shows neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes pulling matter from companion stars. In NGC 4258 (M106), jets from the central black hole create unusual "anomalous" arms of hot gas. Centaurus A displays a powerful particle jet extending tens of thousands of light-years. And in systems like II Zw 096 or NGC 3256, chaotic mergers are visible, where dust, star formation, and hot gas are mixed in a cosmic whirlpool.
What is especially interesting is that many of these objects help us better understand our own Milky Way. By studying how bars feed the central black hole or how mergers reshape galaxies, scientists gain clues about the past and possible future of our system. X-ray observations are critical: they reveal the sources of heavy elements that make up planets, air, and even our bodies.
Looking at these images, it is hard not to feel the scale of what is happening. Over billions of years, gravity, supernova explosions, black hole jets, and collisions of entire stellar systems combine into a single, remarkably coherent picture. Galaxies are born, collide, lose gas, give birth to new stars, and enrich the space around them with matter from which other worlds may one day emerge. We live in a vast, complex, and perfectly connected universe, where each such "cosmic jewel" is but a tiny detail in a far grander mechanism.
