The earth, moon and stars.

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Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:03pm

Earth in Full View - The first time astronauts were able to photograph the South polar ice cap. Nearly the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible, along with the Arabian Peninsula. Image Credit: Apollo 17/NASA - '72

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:05pm

Color of the Moon - Earth's Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or yellow. But small color differences have been greatly exaggerated to make this dramatic mosaic image of the Moon's gibbous phase. The familiar Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) is the blue area right of center. White lines radiate from the crater Tycho at bottom left, while purplish tones mottle the crater Copernicus left of center. The different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface - blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. lmage Credit: Johannes Schedler/Panther Observatory/NASA.

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:09pm

Sunspot Loops in Ultraviolet - Shown in ultraviolet light, the relatively cool dark regions have temperatures of thousands of degrees. Large sunspot group AR 9169 from the last solar cycle is visible as the bright area near the horizon. The bright glowing gas flowing around the sunspots has a temperature of over one million degrees. The reason for the high temperatures is unknown but thought to be related to the rapidly changing magnetic field loops that channel solar plasma. Large sunspot group AR 9169 moved across the Sun during September '00 and decayed in a few weeks. Credit: TRACE Project, NASA

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:12pm

Hubble deep field JANUARY 15, 1996: One peek into a small part of the sky, one giant leap back in time. The Hubble telescope has provided mankind's deepest, most detailed visible view of the universe.
Representing a narrow "keyhole" view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the Hubble Deep Field image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime 75 feet away. Though the field is a very small sample of the heavens, it is considered representative of the typical distribution of galaxies in space, because the universe, statistically, looks largely the same in all directions. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of development.  NASA

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:14pm

Veil Nebula (NGC 6992) Veil Nebula (NGC 6992) - Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,500 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded and is near the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon.  lmage Credit: Daniel Lopez/Observatorio del Teide/NASA.

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:16pm

Grand Spiral Galaxy Grand Spiral Galaxy (NGC 1232) - The visible part of this spiral galaxy is dominated by millions of bright stars and dark dust, caught up in a gravitational swirl of spiral arms revolving about the center. Open clusters containing bright blue stars can be seen sprinkled along these spiral arms, while dark lanes of dense interstellar dust can be seen sprinkled between them. Less visible, but detectable, are billions of dim normal stars and vast tracts of interstellar gas, together wielding such high mass that they dominate the dynamics of the inner galaxy. Invisible are even greater amounts of matter in the form of pervasive dark matter. lmage Credit: FORS/8.2-meter VLT Antu/ESO/NASA.

Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on January 24, 2012 at 3:18pm

Andromeda Galaxy - Young, hot, high-mass stars, are represented in blue, while populations of relatively older stars are shown as green dots. The bright yellow spot at the galaxy's center depicts a particularly dense population of old stars. Swaths of red in the galaxy's disk indicate cool, dusty regions where stars are forming. These stars are still shrouded by the cosmic clouds of dust and gas that collapsed to form them. Hints of pinkish purple depict regions where the galaxy's populations of hot, high-mass stars and cooler, dust-enshrouded stars co-exist. Located 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda is a spiral galaxy that is our largest nearby galactic neighbor. The galaxy's entire disk spans about 260,000 light-years, which means that a light beam would take 260,000 years to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy's disk is about 100,000 light-years across. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.