.On July 4, 2005, NASA's
Deep Impact released a probe that crashed into Comet Tempel-1 with an energy equivalent to about five tons of TNT.
But for fireworks on a grand scale, the
Antenna Galaxies in the constellation Corvus (the Crow) are more dramatic. There are two galaxies interacting and this has caused lots of starburst activity. The X-ray image shows the hot gases surrounding the galaxies. [Image: Hubble Space Telescope]
And can fireworks in the park match the cosmic show of
Supernova 1987A? This light show has had astronomers studying it for three and a half decades. This vivid ring of material, seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, was probably shed by the original star about 20,000 years before it exploded. [Image: NASA, ESA, P. Challis and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics]