Awesome astronomy photographs!

[Locut0s]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/around_the_solar_system.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

 

[TheVrolok]

Do want: higher res wallpaper versions.

 

[zerocool84]

Saturn's moon Rhea (1528 km or 949 mi across) is gently lit in front of a background of the planet with a wide shadow cast by the rings which are seen nearly edge-on, seen by Cassini on may 8th, 2010

This one is crazy

 

[lxskllr]

Very cool pictures. I'm not a huge space fan, but I love looking at pictures, and imagining being somewhere other than earth.

 

[Locut0s]

Saturn's moon Rhea (1528 km or 949 mi across) is gently lit in front of a background of the planet with a wide shadow cast by the rings which are seen nearly edge-on, seen by Cassini on may 8th, 2010

This one is crazy

Along the same lines I love this one:

 

[Riceninja]

so much unexplored beauty out there and all we think about is how to kill eachother over pieces of barren land

 

[yhelothar]

 

[Wyndru]

Wow, I didn't think most lights were powerful enough at night to see from that far away. I always thought those night shots where they show daytime on one side and night on another (lit up by lights) were fake.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

The Earth ones were the most amazing IMHO. I loved the Italy one at night.

 

[Arcadio]

Excellent pictures. Those geysers on Enceladus are impressive.

Wow, I didn't think most lights were powerful enough at night to see from that far away. I always thought those night shots where they show daytime on one side and night on another (lit up by lights) were fake.

Probably a long exposure...

 

[zsdersw]

I was most taken aback by the ones of Mars. The ones from Saturn and its moons were cool as well.

 

[bignateyk]

so much unexplored beauty out there and all we think about is how to kill eachother over pieces of barren land

Last time I checked all the planets were pretty barren too.

 

[ViviTheMage]

That first picture is rather epic! That solar flare must have been the size of 50 earths!

 

[zsdersw]

Last time I checked all the planets were pretty barren too.

Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

 

[Fritzo]

All of human history---everything that has ever happened to our species---took place on this little ball of light. Kind of makes one feel insignificant.

 

[Analog]

 

[Riceninja]

Last time I checked all the planets were pretty barren too.

because we havent developed the technology to find out otherwise

 

[KeithTalent]

Very nice and bless them for having all of the pictures on one page and not forcing me to click through some dumbass slideshow or seomthing. :thumbsup:

I really like #4; would love to find all of these in 1920x1200.

KT