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It's not hard to see that the future of space exploration and colonization belongs to the corporations. Even now, private companies are already setting their sights on the sky and beyond, looking toward the next lucrative industry. Suffice it to say, space is going to be big business.

It's this premise that drives Offworld Trading Company, the upcoming real-time strategy game from Mohawk Games and Stardock Entertainment, headed to Steam's Early Access program on February 12.

Offworld Trading Company places you in the role of one such upstart company, where the resource-rich surface of Mars is waiting to be harvested in a bid to become the biggest business on the red planet.

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Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg wrote an impassioned post about the importance of free speech following the Charlie Hebdo killings. This week—whiplash warning—Facebook is censoring images of the Prophet Muhammad in Turkey, including images similar to the Hebdo cartoons.

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In honor of the United Nations' marking 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, NASA has released a series of stunning new images of the cosmos.

The mind-blowing images below show us wispy remnants of stars that exploded long ago and distant galaxies with energetic supermassive black holes at their centers.

What makes this set so interesting is that some of these distant cosmological marvels are invisible to the human eye. In order to create the beautiful pictures shown to the right, NASA has combined the light detected from several different telescopes.

The reason astronomers study light with different wavelengths and energies is because this technique illuminates the universe in ways that would otherwise remain hidden. And the more they see, the more astronomers can understand the cosmos.

What humans see is only a very small part of what scientists call the electromagnetic spectrum. This spectrum encompasses all forms of radiation — energy that moves through space. The term "visible light" refers to the part of the spectrum that we can see:

NASA'S different space telescopes all pick up electromagnetic radiation from different parts of this spectrum:

• Chandra X-ray Observatory detects X-rays
• Galaxy Evolution Explorer detects ultra-violet rays
• Hubble Space Telescope detects visible light
• Spitzer Space Telescope detects infrared light

NASA also uses telescopes on the ground like the Australia Telescope Compact Array, which detects radio waves, and the Digital Sky Survey, which (like Hubble) detects visible light.

Most of the pictures below are not what you would actually see if you were looking through a powerful telescope. In order to study objects in different wavelengths, astronomers convert the non-visible parts of the spectrum into colors like purple, blue, and red, which you see in the images below.

Star Bones

Astronomers can study the bones of stars that exploded in a brilliant light show, called a supernova, millions of years ago.

This image of a supernova remnant, called SNR 0519-69.0, is more than 163,000 light years away in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

If you could hop on a spaceship and travel to this gaseous nebula, you might be disappointed. That's because the image above is not what you would see in reality.

Below is a gif of the two real images — one of visible light from Hubble (which is what you could see through a telescope) and one of X-rays from Chandra — and then the final composite image. It's amazing how NASA is able to combine them to create the final composite piece, using the special abilities of each individual telescope:

A Star Without A Pulse

The supernova remnant, called MSH 11-62, is a bit of a mystery. Judging from its shape, astronomers suspect that there is a rapidly rotating, extremely dense star, called a pulsar, toward the top of this cloud of gas.

Pulsars emit powerful pulses of high-energy radiation and that, together with their spinning rotation, produces a signature-shaped, elongated cloud, like the one in the composite below. But astronomers have yet to detect any pulses within the distant nebula.This false-color image is made from images created by the Chandra in X-rays (blue), the Digitized Sky Survey in visible light, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array in radio waves (purple).

Radio waves are lower in energy than visible light or X-rays, so they're good for detecting low-temperature gas, which shows up in the purple image below:

Millennia In The Making

About 2,000 years ago, ancient Chinese astronomers recorded a "guest star" that seemingly appeared out of nowhere and remained visible for eight months. Modern astronomers suspect that this guest star was a supernova and that the composite image below is the left-over guts of what remains of that star.

The false-color picture above is made from combining a Hubble shot in visible light and a Chandra image in the X-ray part of the spectrum (blue/purple). See how NASA puts these two images together in the animation below:

Hungry, Hungry Black Holes

Located 700 million light years from Earth is the Cygnus A galaxy. This is a fascinating example of the power of supermassive black holes. Cygnus A is known as an active galaxy because the supermassive black hole at its center is emitting large amounts of radiation into space, which this image highlights in blue and red.

In reality, this galaxy looks nothing like the image above. But with the help of Chandra and NSF's Very Large Array radio telescope, astronomers can see the dynamic nature of this galaxy's center.

The false-color image above is made from three photos taken by Chandra in X-rays (blue), NSF's Very Large Array in radio waves (red), and Hubble in visible light. (Here, red is a false color and not what you would see in reality, unlike the true red color in the earlier Hubble image of SNR 0519-69.0.)

Check out the stark contrast in temperature of the hot X-rays around the center versus the low-temperature gas that the black hole has ejected millions of light years away.

The Most Picturesque Of All?

Last but not least is one of the most picturesque galaxies in the universe: the Whirlpool galaxy. This galaxy floats in space 21 million light years from Earth and is part of a class of galaxies called spiral galaxies because of their distinct spiral arms swirling out from the center.

Spiral galaxies are particularly interesting to astronomers because our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is also a spiral galaxy. Learning more about other spiral galaxies gives insight to our own.

The false-color image above is made from four photos taken by Chandra in X-rays (purple), the Galaxy Evolution Explorer in in ultraviolet (blue), Hubble in visible light (green), and the Spitzer Space Telescope in the infrared (red).

Astronomers study objects in infrared (red) wavelengths because, as with radio waves, infrared shows low-temperature gas. At higher energies, in ultra-violet (blue) wavelengths, astronomers can detect pockets of star formation.

With that in mind, check out the level of activity at the galaxy's center in all of the images below: The infrared indicates that there's a great deal of dust around the center; the ultra-violet points to bright spots of star formation; visible light shows dark patches where gas is blocking the light; and the X-rays highlight blazing-hot gas, which the supermassive black hole at the center is shooting off into space.

Without instruments like Chandra, Hubble, Spitzer, and many more, astronomers would understand very little about our universe.

LEARN MORE: A Crazy New Theory Suggests That Our Galaxy Is A Giant Worm Hole — Here's What The Experts Say

CHECK OUT: The Incredible Discovery Of The Oldest Depiction Of The Universe Was Almost Lost To The Black Market

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Dogs have been man's best friend ever since a poem in the New York Literary Journal coined the term back in 1821, but they're best friend in title only and tired of being treated like second class mammals.

The way dogs see it if they can do what humans do then their ranking in the mammalian pecking order is guaranteed to go up. However, dogs acting like humans may sound like fun, but as these images will show it could mean the beginning of the end for both felines and mankind!

It all started back in those black and white toned days of yore, when some lazy nanny decided to let the family dog take over for the afternoon

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Dogs soon discovered that if they could perform those menial tasks that humans hate they'd soon be offered a job

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Jobs would lead to social status and an income, and humans would begin to entrust them with more responsibility in society

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So dogs taught themselves how to drive to work every morning just like a human

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If there's one thing dogs know how to do it's work, and they generally start working their paws off as a pup

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Dogs usually like to work outdoors, but fitting in means taking whatever job comes your way

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Although some dogs retain their mighty lofty dreams despite their lowly social status

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Those with more realistic goals applied for Canine College Funds and got a good education

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Where they learned that in order to better fit in they would have to look like humans in both dress and attitude

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Some donned a more fashionable look than others

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Most dogs tried to make sure the outfit they wore matched the job they'd been assigned

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But those who started dressing for comfort discovered that working hard isn't all it's cracked up to be, and nothing beats lounging comfortably on the couch

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Those who didn't turn into lazy lumps kept working hard for the money, doing everything from cooking

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To laying concrete like canine construction bosses

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And they discovered that working like a human is really hard work, and really tiring!

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When the weekend rolled around those hard working canines kept up the ruse by dressing for leisure time activities

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And having fun in the sun like their humans do

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Most dogs enjoyed the clothing lines that went along with the leisure life, and didn't try to reel in their flair for fashion

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However, wearing clothes doesn't come naturally to canines, and when it's time to unwind most still preferred going au naturale, which kept them from fully fitting in with their human masters

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Canine naturalists tried to teach their bare fur ways to the younger generation, who didn't seem very happy with the whole idea of hound nudism

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And like the rebellious youngsters they are the new generation began using fashion to express their carefree attitudes

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If it wasn't for these rebellious pups, and the canine naturalist movement, dogs might have been able to slip right in to human society

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They would have walked among us virtually unnoticed

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And before we could say "woof" we humans would have been enslaved by our canine overlords

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Do yourself, and the human world, a favor and treat your dog like a dog- love them, brush them, feed them, play fetch with them and take them for walks. But whatever you do don't get lazy and let them do your work for you, or we're all doomed!

If you were one of the millions of people driving over London's perpetually congested A13 highway in late November, you probably wouldn't have noticed it: Below the underpass, an eerily glowing orb surrounded by crowds of people who seemed to be crawling in and out of it.

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