CUB4514194: Galium Cruciata, North Italy, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514195: Dictamnus Albus, Alpi-Appennini, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514201: Galanthus Nivalis, Alpi, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514214: Solanum rantonnetii, blue potato bush / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514223: Gagea Fistulosa, Alpi, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514228: Fraxinus Excelsior, Ash, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514256: Fibigia Clypeata, Alpi, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514268: Erythronium Densy-Canis, Alpi-Appennini, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514277: Eupatorium Cannabinum, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514302: Cytinus Hypocistis, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514315: Echinops Ritro, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514364: Bellidiastrum Michelii, Alpi, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514374: Biscutella Laevigata, Alpi, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514388: Carpinus Betulus, Italy / Bridgeman Images

CUB4514394: Astragalus Monspessulanus, North Italy, Italy / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565011: Globular cluster M54 in Sagittarius - Globular cluster M54 in Sagittarius - The globular cluster M54 photographed by the Hubble space telescope (HST). M54 resides about 90,000 light years from Earth, in the dwarf galaxy of Sagittarius. The object shown in this beautiful Hubble image, dubbed Messier 54, could be just another globular cluster, but this dense and faint group of stars was in fact the first globular cluster found that is outside our galaxy. Discovered by the famous astronomer Charles Messier in 1778, Messier 54 belongs to a satellite of the Milky Way called the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy. Messier had no idea of the significance of his discovery at the time, and it wasn't until over two centuries later, in 1994, that astronomers found Messier 54 to be part of the miniature galaxy and not our own. Current estimates indicate that the Sagittarius dwarf, and hence the cluster, is situated almost 90 000 light - years away - - more than three times as far from the centre of our galaxy than the Solar System. Ironically, even though this globular cluster is now understood to lie outside the Milky Way, it will actually become part of it in the future. The strong gravitational pull of our galaxy is slowly engulfing the Sagittarius dwarf, which will eventually merge with the Milky Way creating one much larger galaxy. This picture is a composite created by combining images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Light that passed through a yellow - orange (F606W) was colored blue and light passing through a near - infrared filter (F814W) was colored red. The total exposure times were 3460 s and 3560 s, respectively and the field of view is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565031: Globular cluster M56 in Lyre - Globular cluster M56 in Lyr / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565068: Globular cluster M71 in the Fleche - Globular cluster M71 in Sagitta - M71 is located about 12,000 light years away from Earth. Image of the central region of the cluster obtained by the Hubble space telescope. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a bright scattering of stars in the small constellation of Sagitta (the Arrow). This is the centre of the globular cluster Messier 71, a great ball of ancient stars on the edge of our galaxy around 13,000 light - years from Earth. M71 is around 27 light - years across. Globular clusters are like galactic suburbs, pockets of stars that exist on the edge of major galaxies. These clusters are tightly bound together by their gravitational attraction, hence their spherical shape and their name: globulus means little sphere”” in Latin. Around 150 such globular clusters are known to exist around our Milky Way, each one of them containing several hundred thousand stars. Despite being a familiar object, Messier 71's precise nature was disputed until recently. Was it simply an open cluster, a loosely bound group of stars? This was for many years the dominant view. But in the 1970s, astronomers came to the view that it is in fact a relatively sparse globular cluster. The stars in Messier 71, as is usual in such clusters, are relatively old, at around 9 to 10 billion years, and consequently are low in elements other than hydrogen and helium. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565074: Fancy dress costume for the element Air, with dress embroidered with windmill, bodice with zephyr brooch, girdle with horn and bellows, headdress of weather vane. Handcoloured lithograph after a design by Leon Sault from “” L'Art du Travestissement” (The Art of Fancy Dress), Paris, c.1880. Sault was a theatre and opera designer and luxury fashion magazine publisher. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565082: Fancy dress costume for a Brittany peasant girl, with linen bonnet, flowery shawl, silk apron with velvet trim, lilac dress. Handcoloured lithograph after a design by Leon Sault from “” L'Art du Travestissement” (The Art of Fancy Dress), Paris, c.1880. Sault was a theatre and opera designer and luxury fashion magazine publisher. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565146: Globular cluster M30 in Capricornus - Globular cluster M30 in Capricornus - The globular cluster M30 (NGC 7099) is located about 26,000 light years away from Earth. The globular cluster M30 (NGC 7099) is located about 26 000 light year awa / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565155: Globular cluster M30 in Capricornus - Globular cluster M30 in Capricornus - The globular cluster M30 (NGC 7099) is located about 28,000 light years away from Earth. Globular clusters are generally peoples of very old stars, but here the Hubble space telescope has identified some young stars, blue stragglers. Messier 30 formed 13 billion years ago and was discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier. Located about 28 000 light - years away from Earth, this globular cluster - - a dense swarm of several hundred thousand stars - - is about 90 light - years across. Although globular clusters such as this one are mainly populated by old stars, the crowded field of stars leads to some old stars apparently reclaiming their youth in the form of blue stragglers. Researchers using data from Hubble's now - retired Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) have identified two types of blue stragglers in Messier 30: those that form in near head - on collisions with one another and those that are in twin (or binary) systems where the less massive star siphons “” life - giving”” hydrogen from its more massive companion. This image of Messier 30 (M30) was taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565222: Woman of the court of King Louis XVI of France, 18th century. She wears a taffeta riding coat, muslin fichu, satin petticoats, decorated with ribbons and bows. Handcoloured lithograph after a design by Leon Sault from “” L'Art du Travestissement” (The Art of Fancy Dress), Paris, c.1880. Sault was a theatre and opera designer and luxury fashion magazine publisher. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565265: Scottish man in kilt and sporran, 19th century. Handcoloured lithograph by A.E. after a design by Leon Sault from “” L'Art du Travestissement”” (The Art of Fancy Dress), Paris, c.1880. Sault was a theatre and opera designer and luxury fashion magazine publisher. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565299: Galaxy cluster Abell 2151 - Hercules cluster - Abell 2151 the Hercules cluster - Galaxy cluster consists of about one hundred galaxies located 365 million light years ago in the constellation Hercules. Abell 2151, the Hercules cluster, is a small, irregular cluster, with a core membership of fewer than 100 galaxies, with none strongly dominant central galaxy. It is more than 360 million light - years away / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565307: Galaxy cluster Abell 2151 - Hercules cluster - Abell 2151 the Hercules cluster - Galaxy cluster consists of about one hundred galaxies located 365 million light years ago in the constellation Hercules. Abell 2151, the Hercules cluster, is a small, irregular cluster, with a core membership of fewer than 100 galaxies, with none strongly dominant central galaxy. It is more than 360 million light - years away / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565422: Sepoy, sipahee or native soldier, in winter uniform of red jacket and grey trousers, holding a musket. Handcoloured copperplate engraving by an unknown artist from “” Asiatic Costumes,”” Ackermann, London, 1828. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565453: Galaxies Group: Stephan Quintet in Pegase - Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies - Image obtained with the northern Gemini telescope. This group of five galaxies is located about 300 million light years away from Earth. However the galaxy NGC 7320 (top in the center) would be 8 times closer to us. It contains numerous hydrogen clouds in which stars form. Stephan's Quintet is located 300 million light years away. The galaxies shapes are warped by gravitational interactions occurring over millions of years. The ongoing dance deformed their structures while spawning a prolific fireworks display of star formation fueled by clouds of hydrogen gas that were shocked into clumps to form stellar nurseries. Image made with Gemini North telescope / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565461: Central part of the Virgo cluster - Central part of the Virgo cluster - The Virgin cluster contains several thousand galaxies. It is located about 70 million light years from Earth. To the right are the galaxies M84 (NGC 4374) and M86 (NGC 4406) (to the left) dominate the image. Lower left is the elliptical galaxy M87. Located about 70 million light years away, the Virgo cluster is a gigantic collection of several thousand galaxies that dominate our local part of the universe. Markarian's Chain of galaxies is in the center, including giant elliptical galaxies M86 and M84. M87 is another giant elliptical galaxy at lower left in the photo / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565462: Galaxies Group: Stephan's Quintet in Pegase - Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies - Image obtained with the Hubble space telescope. This group of 5 galaxies is located about 270 million light years away from Earth. In this image three star-forming regions are visible: in the long arm of NGC 7319 (near the center); the gas debris of two galaxies, NGC 7318B and NGC 7318A (upper right); and in the upper left. Blue indicates that these stars are young. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a close - up view of the central part of Stephan's Quintet, giving a magnificent view of a gigantic cosmic collision. Stephan's Quintet, as its name implies, is a group of five galaxies (NGC7317, 7318A, 7318B, 7319 and 7320) and lies about 270 million light - years away in the constellation of Pegasus (North - west of the Great Square of Pegasus). A sixth galaxy (NGC 7320C) lies south - east of the other five (upper left - hand corner of the overview image). The galaxy group was the first of its kind to be discovered and was found by the French astronomer Edouard Stephan in 1877, using the Foucault 80 - cm reflector at the Marseille Observatory. Today we know of hundreds of similar groupings, but few are as spectacular as Stephan's Quintet. This image is a mosaic of two pointings with the WFPC2 instrument made in December 1998 and June 1999 / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565466: Galaxies Group: Stephan's Quintet in Pegase - Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies - Image obtained with the Hubble space telescope. This group of 5 galaxies is located about 270 million light years away from Earth. In this image three star-forming regions are visible: in the long arm of NGC 7319 (near the center); the gas debris of two galaxies, NGC 7318B and NGC 7318A (upper right); and in the upper left. Blue indicates that these stars are young. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope photo shows three regions of star birth: the long, sweeping tail and spiral arms of NGC 7319 [near center]; the gaseous debris of two galaxies, NGC 7318B and NGC 7318A [top right]; and the area north of those galaxies, dubbed the northern starburst region [top left]. The clusters' bluish color indicates that they're relatively young. Their ages span from about 2 million to more than 1 billion years old. The brilliant star clusters in NGC 7318B's spiral arm (about 30,000 light - years long) and the northern starburst region are between 2 million and more than 100 million years old. NGC 7318B instigated the starburst by barreling through the region. The bully galaxy is just below NGC 7318A at top right. Although NGC 7318B appears dangerously close to NGC 7318A, it's traveling too fast to merge with its close neighbor. The partial galaxy on the far right is NGC 7320, a foreground galaxy not physically bound to the other galaxies in the picture. About 20 to 50 of the clusters in the northern starburst region reside far from the coziness of galaxies. The clusters were born about 150,000 light - years from the nearest galaxy. A galaxy that is no longer part of the group triggered another collision that wreaked havoc. NGC 7320C [not in the photo] plowed through the quintet several hundred million years ago, pulling out the 100,000 light - year - long tail of gaseous debris from NGC 7319. The clusters in NGC 7319's streaming tail are 10 million to 500 mi / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565503: Group of Galaxies: Stephan Quintet in Pegase - This group of 5 galaxies is located about 260 million light years away from Earth. These galaxies are interacting, however the NGC 7320 galaxy (down in the middle) would be 8 times closer to us. This group of galaxies is located about 260 million light - years away in Pegasus constellation. They are gravitationally interacting with the exception of the interloper NGC 7320 (bottom center) which is a foreground galaxy. Image made with a 32 inches telescope / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565533: Barburdar or Indian steward, in turban, muslin kupra or loincloth, cotton vest, and kumerbund or sash, carrying keys. Handcoloured copperplate engraving by an unknown artist from “” Asiatic Costumes,”” Ackermann, London, 1828. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565539: Group of galaxies HCG 87 in Capricorn - Hickson Compact Group 87 in Capricornus - Group of galaxies in interaction situated 400 million years ago - light from Earth. The largest of these galaxies (HCG 87a) is a spiral galaxy seen by the slice; it and its neighbor the elliptical galaxy HCG 87b probably have a central black hole. The third member of this group, the spiral galaxy HCG 87c appears to be in an active phase of star formation. Group of interacting galaxies located at about 400 million light - years. The largest galaxy member (HCG 87a), which is actually disk - shaped, but tilted so that we see it nearly edge - on and its elliptically shaped nearest neighbor (87b) have active galactic nuclei which are believed to harbor black holes that are consuming gas. A third group member, the nearby spiral galaxy 87c, may be undergoing a burst of active star formation. These three galaxies are so close to each other that gravitational forces disrupt their structure and alter their evolution / Bridgeman Images

FLO4565576: Nautch girl or singing girl, India, in embroidered silks and muslins with bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Handcoloured copperplate engraving by an unknown artist from “” Asiatic Costumes,”” Ackermann, London, 1828. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4565586: Galaxy Clusters Abell 1689 - details - Gravitational lenses in Abell 1689 galaxy cluster - Close-up of the various gravitational mirages observed in the Abell 1689 galaxy cluster. Near infrared and visible image obtained by the Hubble space telescope in June 2002. 13 hours of installation. A selection of cropped images from a NASA Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys view of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. These close - ups show “” lensed”” images of background galaxies that have been brightened and smeared by the gravitational bending of light by the foreground cluster. The yellow - white objects are the cluster galaxies located 2.2 billion light - years away. The blue arcs are the distorted images of background galaxies located billions of light - years farther away than Abell 1689. The distribution of both “” normal”” and dark matter, and the alignment of the background galaxies determine the amount of distortion. In a perfectly aligned gravitational lens the background object would be smeared into an “” Einstein ring.”” Instead, there are numerous ring sections or arcs corresponding to individual galaxies. Though the galaxy images are distorted, numerous structural details such as star clusters and dust lanes are magnified. These would not normally be resolved without the lensing effect of the foreground cluster. Red objects in the field may be nearby cool stars, or galaxies at great distances. Images of the same galaxies are also mirrored on either side of the cluster. These distortions yield clues to dark matter in space, and the curvature of the universe. They also beautifully demonstrate Einstein's theory of general relativity that predicted that gravity warps space. This representative color image is a composite of visible - light and near - infrared exposures taken in June 2002 / Bridgeman Images