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Tour the solar system ... on Earth
© BBC 2010
British physicist Brian Cox, host of the "Wonders of the Solar System" documentary series, is hooked up with safety harnesses as he stands on the edge of the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia. Erta Ale's lava lakes are considered an earthly analog to Io, a moon of Jupiter that is the most volcanically active world in the solar system.
One of the most wonderful things about "Wonders of the Solar System" is that the TV series shows off the wonders of Earth as well as the cosmos.
See a meteor shower in a minute
Meteor showers are marvelous sights, as myriads of stargazers found out a week ago. But seeing them can sometimes be inconvenient. To get the best view, you have to go far from city lights and stay up until the wee hours of the morning. The ideal situation would be to camp out in a beautiful location like California's Joshua Tree National Park and keep your eyes open all night.
That's exactly what photographer Henry Jun Wah Lee did last week. He set up his camera in the park for several nights around the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, took a series of exposures and spliced them together artfully into a multi-day time-lapse sequence. The result makes you feel as if the meteors are popping like fireworks amid the multitudes of stars in the Milky Way ... in just a little more than minute.
Saturn's moons show their stuff
NASA / JPL / SSI
A backlit view of the Saturnian moon Enceladus, captured on Aug. 13, highlights geysers rising up from "tiger stripes."
The latest batch of pictures from the Cassini orbiter provides provocative new views of Saturn's moons - including some fresh looks at Enceladus, a moon that has geysers of frost spouting up from cracks in its icy shell.
Out-of-this-world aurora
NASA
In a picture from the International Space Station, an auroral display flashes green above the violet haze on Earth.
Galactic jewel shines in its setting
K. Cook / LLNL / NASA / ESA / STScI / AURA
A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices.
Seen one galaxy, seen 'em all? Not on your life: The Hubble Space Telescope has captured lots of fantastic pictures of spiral galaxies during its 20-plus years of operation, as you can see in our lineup of "Hubble's Greatest Hits." But I have a feeling that today's image of the galaxy NGC 4911 will be joining the hit parade.
Another sun storm on the way
NASA / ESA via SpaceWeather.com
Imagery from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory shows the bulk of a coronal mass ejection from the sun shooting out in a direction that doesn't affect Earth (left side of blocked-out disk) as well as a smaller portion of the ejection that's heading in Earth's direction (right side). Click to watch a short movie of the ejection in progress.
Just days after a wave of geomagnetic activity sparked amazing displays of northern lights as far south as Iowa, another space storm is on its way from the sun - and could hit us as early as Tuesday.
Last hurrah for northern lights?
Jenna Nagel / Submitted via FirstPerson
Clouds hanging over South Dakota cleared at around 11:30 p.m. CT Tuesday to reveal an aurora, photographed by Jenna Nagel. Northern lights were visible in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe, as well as Canada and the northern U.S.
Tonight provides the last best viewing opportunity for northern lights created by this week’s amazing outbursts from the sun. But even if you're far south of the aurora zone, don’t take your eyes off the skies: The summer's biggest meteor show is just getting started.
Smashing pictures from space
NASA / CXC / SAO / JPL-Caltech / STScI
The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red).
New images from telescopes on Earth and in space are providing the inside stories behind a galactic smash-up and a stellar blast. These all-over views are not only scientically valuable - they're stunningly beautiful as well.
A Martian bull's-eye ... and more!
NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona
The central pit within this Martian crater may have been caused by unusual surface layering or a second impact.
Does lightning strike twice in the same place? How about meteors striking Mars? This image, captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, suggests that a cosmic bullet could have hit almost smack-dab in the center of a crater created by an earlier impact. Or it could be the result of just one impact messing around with the Red Planet's layered terrain. Either way, the picture adds to the orbiter's store of weird and wonderful pictures from Mars.
Can you see the northern lights?
NASA / ESA
An extreme ultraviolet image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory shows today's solar activity on the sun. Watch a video explaining the filament and the flare that were ejected from the sun on Sunday.
The first wave of stormy weather from the sun hit Earth today, setting the stage for slightly brighter northern lights tonight - but a bigger light show is expected on Thursday, when the second wave is due to hit.
