[Gold Lion ®]

In this image released by NASA, a dust ring, seen in red, surround the star Fomalhaut, that resides at the center of the image, and not visible to the human eye in this image. The Hubble Telescope discovered the fuzzy image of the planet, known as Fomalhaut b, which is no more that a white speck in the lower right portion of the dust ring that surrounds the star.

This image provided by NASA Nov. 12, 2008 shows the northern polar region of Saturn showing both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, seen at two different wavelengths of infrared light as captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. According to NASA scientists Saturn has its own unique brand of aurora that lights up the polar cap, unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system. This odd aurora revealed itself to one of the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Auroras are caused by charged particles streaming along the magnetic field lines of a planet into its atmosphere. Particles from the sun cause Earth's auroras. Many, but not all, of the auroras at Jupiter and Saturn are caused by particles trapped within the magnetic environments of those planets.

This undated handout photo provided by NASA, taken earlier this month by the Messenger space probe, shows a portion of Mercury. Earth's first nearly full look at Mercury reveals that the tiny lifeless planet took a far greater role in in shaping itself than scientists had thought with volcanoes spewing "mysterious dark blue material." New images from NASA's Messenger space probe should help settle a decades-old debate about what caused parts of Mercury to be somewhat smoother than it should be. NASA released photos Wednesday Oct. 29, 2008 from Messenger's fly-by earlier this month, that gave the answer: Lots of volcanic activity, far more than signs from an earlier probe.

This undated handout photo provided by NASA, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies called Arp 147. The Hubble Space Telescope is working again, taking stunning cosmic photos after a one-month breakdown. The Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said the $10 billion telescope is as good as it was before a shutdown in late September. That glitch scotched plans for spacewalking astronauts to upgrade the telescope this month.

This image provided by NASA Tuesday Oct. 7, 2008 shows the planet Mercury taken on Oct. 6, 2008, at roughly 4:40 a.m. ET, when MESSENGER flew by Mercury for the second time this year. MESSENGER is the first mission sent to orbit the planet closest to the sun. During the encounter, the probe swung just 125 miles (200 kilometers) above the cratered surface of Mercury, snapping hundreds of pictures and collecting a variety of other data from the planet as it gains a critical gravity assist that keeps the probe on track to become the first spacecraft ever to orbit the innermost planet beginning in March 2011. The spectacular image shown here is one of the first to be returned. It shows Mercury about 90 minutes after the spacecraft’s closest approach.

This image provided by NASA Thursday Oct. 2, 2008 shows the "Cantaloupe ridges" on the sun. The glowing white magnetic network is what gives the sun its extra oblateness (The ratio of a planet's polar to its equatorial diameter) during times of high solar activity. Amateur astronomer Gary Palmer took the picture in July 2005 using a violet calcium-K filter

This image provided by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows a new sunspot, upper right, which after many weeks of a blank sun with no sunspots and very few sunspots this entire year, emerged Sept. 23, 2008. This new spot has both the magnetic orientation and the high-latitude position of a sunspot belonging to the new solar cycle, Cycle 24.

Source: http://www.comcast.net/slideshow/news-spacephotos1/

[kobe24life]

wow those are really amazing, that just makes you wonder how big and amazing our universe really is.


EDIT: These are all real right? Not artist concept?

[dimch]

Pretty amazing, and even more amazing to think that we're the only planet with life on it in this humongus universe...

[b4lproductions]

Those pictures are so beautiful...thank you for pointing those out.

[Dribble]

Yeah, saw the 1st pic a while, butthe rest are sick, yeh theyre real but they do look like art.

I do hope we can discover more facts..

[arlubas]

Pretty impressive stuff, that's for sure. 2nd and 4th are the most eye popping ones.

[48_minutes]

Wow. That looks......just wow....wow...

[dNYCE]

I think I just got some extra credit in my Astronomy class.. good looks brotha! ..lol.