Though space is chock-full of interstellar medium, it tends to be invisible unless lit up by a celestial spotlight. Sometimes, scientists get lucky: In 2012, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope grabbed an image of lacy interstellar medium illuminated by Zeta Ophiuchi,

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted one of the earliest and most distant supernovas, marking the death of a stellar monster 20 times the mass of the sun.