Where In The Universe Challenge #152

Here’s a new image for the Where In The Universe Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft/telescope responsible for the image. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until later. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

The answer for the previous WITU challenge can be found here.

UPDATE: The answer has been posted below.

This is a a near-infrared image of lower-level clouds on the night side of Venus, taken by the Galileo spacecraft’s Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, taken as the spacecraft flew by Venus on February 10, 1990, as it was wending its way towards Jupiter. You can learn more about his image at JPL’s Photojournal.