This seemed likely to be a fun thread for the space/astronomy enthusiasts among us (probably more than a couple!)

Over the years, I've accumulated ridiculous numbers of photos and other imagery from Hubble, etc., much of it well-circulated, such as the Hubble "Deep Field" work. So I'll begin, instead, with some less-well-known imagery from the Cassini mission to Saturn.

These are both images of the Saturn's moon Mimas (yes, yes, ... the one that looks like the Death Star--and don't forget, Saturn also has a moon named Pandora!). Something about these images just gives me chills! The backdrop of Saturn in both is just such a great illustration of cosmic scale, albeit small cosmic scale.

(I did not crop these; alas that most of the Cassini imagery isn't quite desktop resolution!)

this thread is a good idea

This thread is AMASING! I never stop to be amased and awed by the universe! Theres so many questions that i want answered! Sadly, i don't think humanity will get many answers during my lifetime!

Great stuff, X.,.Pandora.,.X. It's so impossible to fathom the size of those nebulae! The aurora on Saturn is amazing too. I love that one.

(goes off to surf images)

Well, I'm sure we'll know more than we do now, anyway. That's still very exciting!!

A photograph of very own sun- but shrunken, as it sets beyond the horizon of a world that is not ours. Taken by the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover in 2005.

There really needs to be a monolith in that picture! I love it.

I need to spend some more time with the Mars rover pics, clearly!

There's a ton of great pans from the rovers here. Many of them are just stunning!

Here's a strange cold world of pinkish ice and nitrogen geysers/cryovolcanoes

I never thought I would see a sunset on mars...thats beautiful

wallpaper version of horsehead nebula

Europa.



Earthrise.



Eagle Nebula ("The tower of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula is approximately 60 trillion miles high").



The Milky Way from Death Valley.



More of Wally Pacholka's photographs can be seen here.



Earth lights.



And, of course, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field - a photo of a tiny patch of sky containing approximately 10,000 individual galaxies.

I love Europa. It doesn't get as much attention these days with all the information Cassini is streaming back about Titan and Enceladus.

That Eagle Nebula is amazing....60 trillion miles high...

I don't have as many as I should

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6036637/Hubb..._rez_edit1.jpg (warning: 10MB. It's the Hubble ultra deep field image )

It's hard to get tired of those Hubble images. Wow. Such truly humbling, amazing stuff. I get tears in my eyes when I think about Hubble being deorbited in just a couple of years. What an astonishing career it will have had!

My favorite picture to date

this is stunning

2 galaxies colliding....amazing to think of the energy and speed occurring

NGC 3603 - one of my favourite places in the Universe.



The Antennae Galaxies