It's a good day for astronomy fans

Galactus needs to take better care of himself. I didn’t even know he was a smoker.

In reality, Hubble captured this spectacular image of a “three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust” that’s under attack from within and without. Infant stars inside are firing off jets of gas, while bigger stars outside the pillar are gobbling it up with their super-bright light. I guess you could call it a big ol’ pocket of star fuel.

Hubble released the image to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and you can bet your warp drive it’s been composited and enhanced out the wazoo. But that doesn’t make it any less amazing (see higher-res versions here). It’s located in the Carina Nebula, which of course you can find in the constellation Carina, at about 7,500 light years away.

For something closer to home, but equally eye-popping, NASA recently brought the SDO — that’s “Solar Dynamics Observatory” — online, after launching this bad boy back in February. Its mission is to study the “space weather” created by the sun, and it’s already turned in some incredible visuals of the star we orbit, using the full spectrum that modern technology provides. Take a look at the image below, that shows details of the sun never seen before, using false-color and compositing.

The SDO also captured this video of a solar flare that’s guaranteed to blow your mind.