Space at
your fingertips.
"I want to know why the universe exist, why there is something greater than nothing."
Steven Hawking
Scientist, Space Lover
During the Astro-1 astronomy mission of December, 1990, Space Shuttle astronauts photographed this stunning view of the full moon rising above the Earth's limb. In the foreground, towering clouds of condensing water vapor mark the extent of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's life-sustaining atmosphere. Strongly scattering blue sunlight, the upper atmospheric layer, the stratosphere, fades dramatically to the black background of space. Moon and clouds are strong visual elements of many well known portraits of Planet Earth, including Ansel Adams' famous "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico", photographed in November of 1941.
The black indentation to the red emission nebula seen just to the right of center of the above photograph is one of the most famous features in any nebulae on the sky. Because of its shape, it is known as the Horsehead Nebula. The bright star near the center is located in the belt of the familiar constellation of Orion. The horse head feature is dark because it is really a dense dust cloud which lies in front of the bright nebula and blocks the light. Like clouds in our sky, this cosmic cloud has chanced to assume a recognizable shape. After thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will alter its appearance. The emission nebula's red color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Also visible in the picture are blue reflection nebulae. This type of nebula contains dust which preferentially reflects the blue light of nearby stars.
Seen from ice moon Tethys, rings and shadows would play across fantastic views of the Saturnian system. Haven't dropped in on Tethys lately? Then this gorgeous ringscape from the Cassini spacecraft will have to do for now. Caught in sunlight just below and left of picture center, Tethys itself is about 1,000 kilometers in diameter and orbits not quite five saturn-radii from the center of the gas giant planet. At that distance (around 300,000 kilometers) it is well outside Saturn's main bright rings, but Tethys is still one of five major moons that find themselves within the boundaries of the faint and tenuous outer E ring. Discovered in the 1980s, two very small moons Telesto and Calypso are locked in stable locations along Tethys' orbit. Telesto precedes and Calypso follows Tethys as the trio circles Saturn.
Expanse