The Best Space Photos Ever: Astronauts & Scientists Weigh in
The wonder of the cosmos.The beauty of the heavens. Such phrases come easily to mind when contemplating space, which is just such a photogenic place.
Looking up at the night sky has inspired humanity for eons, and the first photographs taken of space changed our relationship with the sky forever. Then, the first photos taken from space, both of distant galaxies and of our own planet, revolutionized our understanding of our place in the cosmos again.
Many seminal images stand out in the history of astrophotography, with some pictures universally adored and others special to individuals for personal reasons.
We asked scientists, photographers, authors and historians for their favorite space photographs and found a diversity of choices, as well as some popular recurring favorites.
The Lonely Wanderer
Musings, thoughts and streams of consciousness from an old soul in a young body
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A Comet Tail Horizon
Credit & Copyright: Marco Fulle
Night View: California, Mexico’s Baja California and the Gulf of Cortez
City lights illuminate this night time view of southern California, Mexico’s Baja California and the Gulf of Cortez, as photographed by one the Expedition 28 crew members onboard the International Space Station flying at altitude of approximately 220 miles. A 15-mm focal length was used to capture the time lapse image. The thin line of Earth’s atmosphere is visible above the horizon.
(via dearbuddha)
This is a real image taken by the robotic spacecraft Cassini of Saturn eclipsing the sun (via).
Amazing. There is a little blue dot on the left side of the image just above the bright main rings. That is Earth, approximately a billion miles away.
Not psychology related, just an incredible image. Click for high resolution to see Earth.
Holy SHIT that’s pretty
(via HubbleSite - Picture Album: The Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392))
slavishly reblogging anything NASA puts up. Its my favorite government agency…by far…
Stars and Dust of the Lagoon Nebula -
The large majestic Lagoon Nebula is home for many young stars and hot gas. Spanning 100 light years across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebulae is so big and bright that it can be seen without a telescope toward the constellation of Sagittarius.
NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula -
It’s the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun.
beautiful!
(via HubbleSite - Picture Album: The Cat’s Eye Nebula’s Intricate Layers)
one of these days!!
Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered
Astronomers using ESO’s exoplanet hunter HARPS at La Silla Observatory in Chile have today announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths. This is the largest number of such planets ever announced at one time.
By studying the properties of all the HARPS planets found so far, the team have now improved the estimate of how likely it is that a star like the Sun is host to low-mass planets (as opposed to gaseous giants). They find that about 40% of such stars have at least one planet less massive than Saturn. The majority of exoplanets of Neptune mass or less appear to be in systems with multiple planets.
One of the recently announced newly discovered planets, HD 85512 b, is estimated to be only 3.6 times the mass of the Earth and is located at the edge of the habitable zone — a narrow zone around a star where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist.
These results make astronomers confident that they are close to discovering other small rocky habitable planets around stars similar to our Sun. In the coming ten to twenty years we should have the first list of potentially habitable planets in the Sun’s neighbourhood.
Image: Artist’s impression shows the planet orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela.
