NASA and ESA are celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's silver anniversary of 25 years in space by unveiling some of nature's own fireworks — a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides inside a vibrant stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina. The comparatively young, 2-million-year-old star cluster contains some of our galaxy's hottest, brightest, and most massive stars. The largest stars are unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light and hurricane-force winds that etch away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud. This creates a fantasy celestial landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys.

Press release: hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/full/

This composite image combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multi-wavelength picture.

It features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our Sun. Permeating the region is a diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole as well as by winds from massive stars and by stellar explosions. Infrared light reveals more than a hundred thousand stars along with glowing dust clouds that create complex structures including compact globules, long filaments, and finger-like "pillars of creation," where newborn stars are just beginning to break out of their dark, dusty cocoons.

Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, and STScI

Shot in May 2013 near the city of Kashan in Iran.

Photo Settings: 29mm, f/4, 1/2500 second, ISO 200.

Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Kahlenberg hills, north-west of Vienna, Austria.

June 2013.

Samsung NX10.

Photo Settings: 18mm, f/5, 1/125 second, ISO 100.

The Lac de Chésery near Chamonix in France.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM. Three RAW exposures taken at 15-60 seconds, ISO 100, f/11.0, 20mm.

Copyright © 2012 Sven Müller. All rights reserved.

Captured in Oulu, Finland. View from the pier to the river beds. It was so foggy that you couldn't see further from the pier.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.4.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II.

Photo Settings: 24mm, f/8, 1/2 second, ISO 800.

Map: 65.0263, 25.4510

Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

This is my take on the most beautiful view of New York City.

This picture was taken during sunset from the Top Of The Rock!

Adobe Photoshop CS6, Camera Raw, VSCO.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L II USM.

Photo Settings: 24mm, f/2, 1/60 second, ISO 400.

Map: 40.7587, -73.9784

From the top of Cloud's Rest, looking towards Half Dome in the morning. August, 2010. The dual-monitor version is highly recommended. You can purchase this photograph and my other work from my website:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/shoenberg3/portfolio

Canon EOS 5D, SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4.