APOD4.7

The planet Gliese 581c is at the right distance from a red dwarf star to be habitable by life. This is what an artist thinks a sunrise on the planet's surface would look like. The planet is only 20 light years away, so travel to this planet is not farfetched.

APOD4.6

This is looking out the window of the international space station. The structure resembling an eye is the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft, which carries supplies and three fresh astronauts, of American, Russian, and Iranian descent. Anousheh Ansari is traveling with the shuttle as a paying customer. Little do the astronauts know, the machines plot against them.

APOD4.5

This is planet HD 209458b and it is evaporating because it's too close to that big fiery thing in the background. The planet is a hot Jupiter type system because it's like Jupiter but orbiting close to the sun like Mercury. It is claimed (by spectroscopic evidence) that the planet has water vapor, which would be the first planet recorded to have water outside of Earth. This is an artist's rendition however, because the planet is too small to be imaged.

APOD4.4

This is Saturn from below, taken by the Cassini spacecraft. The white dots are clouds high above the surface. The clouds are so thick that they are all we can see. The rings are visible in the bottom left. The circular structure in the center is a gigantic hurricane that shows so signs of stopping.

Galaxy Stuff

APODs: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?galaxy

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy

Galaxy Types:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptical_galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starburst_galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_galaxy

Collisions:
http://www.npaci.edu/enVision/v15.2/ricker.html

Growing Black Holes Regulate Galaxy Formation:
http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050209_blackhole.html

APOD4.3

It's clouds and the moon. The moon is blue because of atmospheric effects. The picture was taken from space. Space is supposedly full of invisible Wendersnavens.

APOD4.2

This is a picture taken by Spirit, one of the Mars rovers. It's in a crater that has exposed underground rocks. Amazing.

APOD4.1

This is the moon. The Earth's shadow is projected onto it. Our atmosphere redshifts light and turns the moon red. One short exposure was taken to get the moon's features, and then a longer exposure was taken to capture the stars behind the moon. They are superimposed on one another to form this image, as the background stars would be invisible otherwise.