pictures Archives

January 6, 2010December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Space Station Pictures

Here are some space station pictures. We’ve already done photo galleries of the International Space Station, but let’s take a look at some different stations as well:

This is a picture of the Mir Space Station, launched by Russia. This photograph was taken by the crew of STS-89 on the space shuttle Endeavour.

Here is a recent image of the International Space Station captured by the crew of STS-129. It shows how much of the construction has now been completed.

This is a picture of Skylab, the United States’ first space station. It was in orbit from 1973 to 1979, and was visited by 3 crews of astronauts.

And maybe some day we’ll live in a futuristic space station like this. It’s called a Stanford Torus, and rotates to provide the people living inside an artificial gravity.

This is an artist’s impression of a future space hotel developed by Bigelow Aerospace. The various modules are inflated and connected together. Test versions of the modules have already been sent into orbit.

We’ve written many articles about the International Space Station for Universe Today. Here’s an article about how you can track the International Space Station, and here’s an article about a how a radio operator was able to communicate with the station.

If you’d like more info on the station, check out NASA’s mission page for ISS. And here’s a link to NASA’s human spaceflight page for the station.

We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about the space shuttle. Listen here, Episode 127: The US Space Shuttle.

January 4, 2010December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Amazing Images

Here are some amazing images of space:

This is an amazing image of the Moon taken from the International Space Station orbiting Earth. What a view!

This is a photograph of the spiral galaxy M83, one of the closest best examples we can see of a spiral galaxy. This image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Here’s an image of Hurricane Ike captured by astronauts on board the International Space Station.

Here’s a photo of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar lander rising from the surface of the Moon to dock with the Command and Service module.

Here’s a picture of Halley’s comet taken by the Giotto spacecraft. You can see the nucleus of the comet tumbling in space and the tail trailing behind.

If you’d like to get more outer space pictures for yourself, check out NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, as well as NASA’s Image of the Day.

Many of the best pictures of space come from the Hubble Space Telescope. You can see the latest images from the Hubble Site, and then an archive of old images at the Hubble Heritage site. There are also great pictures from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

If you’d like pictures of the planets, check out NASA’s Planetary Photojournal, and here are links to missions at the planets in the Solar System. MESSENGER, Venus Express, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Cassini, and New Horizons.

We’ve written many articles about amazing images for Universe Today. Here’s an article about some images from STS-129, and here are some images of the shuttle and Hubble transiting across the Sun.

We’ve recorded many episodes of Astronomy Cast about space. Try this one, Episode 99: The Milky Way.

October 2, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Nebula Pictures

Here are some cool nebula pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

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This is a cool picture of the Omega Nebula, which is also known as the Swan Nebula, or M 17. It’s located in the constellation Sagittarius, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth.

This is picture of the Cat’s Eye Nebula, a planetary nebula in the constellation Draco. This used to be a star similar to our Sun, but then it died and became a white dwarf, puffing off its outer layers into space.

This is the Carina Nebula, a star forming nebula in the Carina Constellation. It holds Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars ever discovered, which is expected to detonate as a supernova in the next few hundred thousand years.

This is the Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635. This nebula glows because of a hot central star that’s providing radiation and exciting the nebula atoms.

Full view of the Trifid Nebula. Credit: ESO

This is a picture of the Trifid Nebula taken by the European Southern Observatory. This nebula was cataloged M 20 by Charles Messier as part of his famous catalog. It’s called the “Trifid Nebula”, because it appears to be broken up into three parts.

We have written many stories about nebulae for Universe Today. Here’s an article with more details about the Trifid Nebula, and here’s an article about planetary nebulae found around heavy stars.

If you want more cool pictures of nebula, you should check out the source. Go to the Hubble Space Telescope page on nebulae.

We have recorded an entire episode of Astronomy Cast that’s just about nebulae. Listen here, Episode 111: Nebulae.

September 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Picture of Earth from Space

Looking for a picture of Earth from Space? Here is a collection.

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Here’s a spectacular image of the earth with the full coverage of the Pacific Ocean. This image was obtained by the Galileo spacecraft on December 12, 1990 while on its way to planet Jupiter 1.6 million miles from the Earth.

This is a spectacular full view of our planet earth. It was taken by the Apollo 17 during their journey to the moon in December 7, 1972. The south polar ice cap of Antarctica can be clearly seen in the image. This region constitutes 70% of the world’s freshwater. This photo of the earth was the first to feature the south polar ice cap.

Here’s an image of different storms and hurricanes forming at the Atlantic Ocean. This image was generated using the data provided by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite on September 3, 2008.

Here’s a nice view of the earth particularly focusing on the Western Hemisphere. Earth is the third planet from the sun and is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist.

This is a nice view of the planet earth and the moon in one frame as seen from the Galileo spacecraft 6.2 million kilometers away.

Here’s a picture of Earth from Space as well as the Moon. These images were taken separately and then stitched together on computer to show them together.

This picture was taken by the Space Shuttle, and shows the Earth from high orbit. You can see how the clouds rise up into the atmosphere.

Here’s another picture of Earth. Again, this was taken from the space shuttle.

This is a satellite map that shows all of the Earth.

This is the classic “Blue Marble” photo of Earth.

Earth from Space at Night

Here’s a photo of the entire Earth, seen from space at night. You can easily see cities and towns in North America, Asia and Europe. And you can also see vast regions of the Earth which are totally dark.

Here’s a photo of the city of Chicago at night. It might look upside down, but that’s because it was captured from the International Space Station as it was passing over the city.

This night space image shows the city of Tokyo at night. The blue green glow in the photograph comes from the mercury vapor lighting that lines the streets of the city.

This space pic from night shows the city of London. You can see the brightest areas are the most densely populated, and the less dense areas are dimmer. You can see the ring road that surrounds London, as well as the path of the Thames river.

Here’s one of the brightest cities in the world. It’s Los Angeles from space, seen at night.

Earth at Night Wallpaper — A Crescent Earth at Midnight

Here’s an amazing picture of the earth in crescent. This breathtaking view of our planet was obtained by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-8) on June 22, 1996. GOES is primarily assigned in monitoring the weather particularly the development of storms and hurricanes in different parts of the earth.

This is an amazing still photo of the earth taken during its transition from day to night. This beautiful photo was taken from the International Space Station in June 2001.

This spectacular image of the crescent earth was captured by the Optical Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) camera on board the Rosetta spacecraft in November 2007.

Here’s a nice view of Houston, Texas at night as seen from the International Space Station on February 28, 2010. This photo was taken by the crew member of the Expedition 22 mission. Houston, Texas is the world’s energy capital.

Earth from Orbit

Here’s an image of the Manicougan Reservoir situated at Canadian Shield in the province of Quebec. This was taken from the International Space Station in December 1983. Manicougan Reservoir covers an area of about 1,942 km².

This image of the sunset on earth was captured from the International Space Station by an Expedition 13 astronaut in August 10, 2006. Expedition 13 mission was able to accomplish a total of 2,886 orbits.

This photo shows the Central Gulf Coast obtained from the International Space Station by an Expedition 11 astronaut in September 10, 2005.

This is a photo of the eye of Hurricane Alberto taken in August 19, 2000 during the Terra orbit 3571. Hurricane Alberto is a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic that lasted for 19.75 days.

This beautiful view of the eye of Hurricane Emily and the moon was captured from the International Space Station in July 16, 2005. Hurricane Emily is a Category 5 hurricane having a maximum wind speed of 160 mph.

Earth from the Space Shuttle

Earth from Space Shuttle — Sunrise in Space

This photo of the earth’s atmosphere during sunrise was taken in July 2005 by a Discovery crew member during the STS-114 mission. STS-114 mission was the first Return to Flight mission after the unfortunate loss of the Columbia space shuttle.

This image of the earth was taken from the space shuttle Endeavor during the STS-59 mission in April 12, 1994. The image particularly shows the shuttle’s payload bay and the region of the Andes Mountains in Bolivia.

Here’s a stunning image of the Sinai Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea as seen from the space shuttle Atlantis. A crew member of the STS-125 mission took this photo during the mission’s first flight in space.

Here’s a unique photo of the earth’s atmosphere taken by the crew members of Atlantis’ STS-125 mission during its preparation for landing on May 20, 2009.

Here’s a great view of the Aurora Australis taken in May 1991 by the STS-39 crew member onboard the space shuttle.

We have written many articles about pictures of Earth from Space for Universe Today. Here’s a story about the Earth from space at night, and here’s an article about images of cities from space.

You can get many more images of Earth from space at NASA’s Earth Observatory website.

We have recorded a whole episode of Astronomy Cast about our planet. Listen to it here, Episode 51: Earth.

September 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Pictures of Islands

Here are some cool pictures of islands… from space!

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This is a picture of South Georgia Island, one of the southernmost islands in the world, off the tip of South America. It was used as a whaling base and now has no permanent inhabitants, other than some scientists. In this picture, taken by NASA’s Terra satellite, the entire island is covered in snow. Here are some more island pictures.

This is a picture of Surtsey Island, captured by the IKONOS satellite. This volcanic island is one of the newest in the world, breaking through the surface of the ocean in 1963. The volcanoes that formed the island erupted for about 4 years and then stopped, and now erosion from the ocean is wearing it back down again.

Next in our pictures of islands is Ascension Island. You can see the airstrip down on the lower right side of the island, and a cinder cone above it. The northern part of the island has lava flows and you can see individual clouds above the island. Ascension Island is one of the space shuttle’s alternative landing sites.

Here’s a picture of a completely man made island. This is Palm Island, off the coast of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Now complete, it has palm fronds surrounded by a circular breakwater. There will eventually be more than 100 luxury hotels, marinas, water theme parks, and many houses.

This is a picture of Akpatok Island, in Northern Quebec, which is accessible only by air. The picture was taken by a Landsat satellite.

We have written many articles about islands for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the biggest island on Earth, and here are more pictures of islands from space.

You can find many more pictures from NASA’s Earth Observatory site.

We have recorded a whole episode of Astronomy Cast just about our planet. Listen to it here, Episode 51: Earth.

September 25, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

NASA Pictures

NASA has the absolute best resources on the web for pictures of space. We write so many articles about space here on Universe Today, so we’ve learned all the best places to look to get the latest and greatest NASA pictures.

Before we go right to some sites, here’s a general tip that you can use when you’re looking for NASA pictures. Use Google, but have it search for images within NASA’s sites. For example, let’s say that you’re looking for an astronomy picture of Mars, but you want it to be a NASA image. Search in Google for: mars picture site:nasa.gov. You can also switch over to the images tab and see lots and lots of images from NASA. You should be able to find the one you’re looking for.

Perhaps the best place to start is NASA’s Featured Images and Galleries. This is linked from the main NASA page and features current pictures as well as classics from the past. It also links you to other NASA image gallery sites.

Another classic is the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Keep in mind that although it’s endorsed by NASA, the pictures featured in Astronomy Picture of the Day are owned and copyright by the original photographers. So you can’t just use their pictures without asking permission first.

There’s a fairly new service out called NASA Images. It’s got a huge catalog of NASA pictures, with cool tools that let you organize and download your favorites.

The NASA Image Exchange is a huge database of NASA pictures. You can search by object, or by spacecraft and use other constraints to find the exact image you’re looking for.

The Johnson Digital Image Collection has photographs from all of NASA’s human spaceflight, from the original Mercury and Gemini flights, though the Apollo landings, right up until the space shuttle missions.

And if you want pictures of Earth, check out NASA’s Visible Earth site or the NASA’s Earth Observatory.

If you want pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, here’s their homepage HubbleSite.

Want NASA photos from specific spacecraft? Here’s NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, here are the Mars Exploration Rovers, and here’s Mercury MESSENGER.

That should get you started.

We have written many articles about NASA and its photography here on Universe Today. Check out this gallery of images from the STS-127 shuttle mission. And here are images from the shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

We have also recorded many episodes of Astronomy Cast about space, and we talk about NASA pictures all the time. Listen to this, Episode 88: The Hubble Space Telescope.

September 24, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Tsunami Pictures

Tsunamis are some of the most devastating natural disasters. The recent Boxing Day Tsunami was generated by an enormous earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004. Coastlines in Asia were inundated with enormous tsunami surges, killing more than 200,000 people.

Here are some Tsunami pictures capture by satellite that show before and after images of the regions affected by the tsunami.

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This photograph shows the devastation that happened in Sri Lanka on December 26th. This picture was taken by the DigitalGlobe Quickbird satellite, and shows how the whole coastline was inundated with water.

Perhaps the most devastation from the tsunami occurred in Indonesia. This is an image of the town of Lhoknga, Indonesia. It was completely wiped off the map by the tsunami, except for the white mosque in the center of town.

This photograph, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite shows how the whole northwest coast of the island of Sumatra was hit hard by the tsunami. It looks like the vegetation was just scraped back from the edge of the island.

We have written many articles about the devastation from the 2004 tsunami. Here’s an article about how GPS could be used for a tsunami warning system.

You can get many more tsunami pictures from NASA from their Earth observation page.

September 23, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Pictures of Rivers

Here are some cool pictures of rivers taken by various spacecraft.

Here’s a picture of the Mississippi river delta. The image was captured by Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.

This is an image of flooding on the Betsiboka River in Madagascar. The flooding was created by Tropical Storm Eric, which swept through the region in early 2009. This photograph was taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station.

People rely on the Colorado River so much that very little of it actually reaches the ocean. Instead, almost all of the water that flows through the river is used for irrigation along its route.

This is a picture of the river delta for the Ganges. In fact, the Ganges combined with the Brahmaputra River make up the largest river delta in the world. The rivers flood from snow melt in the nearby Himalayas.

This is a picture of the Niger River. It was captured by the ASTER instrument on board NASA’s Terra Earth Observation satellite.

We have written many articles with pictures of rivers for Universe Today. Here’s an article about flooding in the Red River, and here’s an image of the Yangtze River from space.

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast all about the Earth. Listen to it here, Episode 51: Earth.

August 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Milky Way Galaxy Pictures

Artist impression of the Milky Way. Image credit: NASA

Here are some beautiful pics of the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s important to remember that we live inside the Milky Way Galaxy, so there’s no way to show a true photograph of what the Milky Way looks like. We can see pictures of the Milky Way from inside it, or see artist illustrations of what the Milky Way might look like from outside.

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This Milky Way Galaxy picture shows what our galaxy would look like from above. You can see its spiral arms, dense core and the thin halo. The Milky Way is a common barred spiral galaxy. There are billions more just like it in the Universe.

Milky Way in infrared. Image credit: COBE

This picture of the Milky Way was captured by NASA’s COBE satellite. This photograph was taken using the infrared spectrum, which allows astronomers to peer through the gas and dust that normally obscures the center of the Milky Way.

The plane of the Milky Way, recorded with the Chandra satellite in three colours: Photons with energies between 0.5 and 1keV appear red, those between 1 and 3keV green, and those between 3 and 7keV blue. Discrete sources are indicated by circles. Image: Mikhail Revnivtsev

This image of the Milky Way Galaxy was taken with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which can see in the X-Ray spectrum. In this view, only high energy emissions are visible, such as the radiation emitted from black holes and other high energy objects.

Artist's concept shows young, blue stars encircling a supermassive black hole at the core of a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Schaller (for STScI)

Here’s an artist’s impression of what a galaxy like the Milky Way might have looked like early in its history. This image shows a supermassive black hole with young blue stars circling it.

Milky_Way_infrared_mosaic. Credit: Spitzer Space Telescope

This is a mosaic image of the Milky Way captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. It was built up by several photographs taken by Spitzer, which sees in the infrared spectrum, and can peer through obscuring dust.