Pictures from Space, pictures of Space
Here’s a selection of astronomical images which have caught my eye for various reasons in the past few months. Click on a pic to get the full effect.
We normally only see Saturn from the “sun-side”, but the Cassini probe recently took this sublime image from the far side of Saturn looking back towards the sun. And with Saturn eclipsing the sun we see the rings in a way we never have before. Firstly you’ll notice how translucent the rings are when we see them through direct light and not the reflected light that usually illuminates them. Secondly you’ll see the outer rings which are normally not visible, but this view of the “F-rings” lets you see exactly the sheer scale involved.
And that little dot on the left between the regular rings and the F-ring? That’s us on earth that is!!!
This is obviously a composite image of the earth at night. What struck me about this pic is that it speaks volumes about the global distribution of wealth versus the distribution of human population.
Our nearest galactic neighbour – the Andromeda Galaxy. I just love the resolution and detail of this photo from Oct 2002. The apparent tranquility of this scene belies the fact that a super-massive black hole resides at the center of this and most other galaxies, including our own Milky Way. At once the black hole both supports the galaxy with a gravitational center and violently consumes it, releasing vast quantities of energy in the x-ray and Gamma-ray spectrum.
