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Space

Coolest Space Science Images of 2001 80

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-see dept.
Ant writes "The collective upward human gaze yields numerous special images of space every year. Being a curious lot with a certain mastery of technology, we keep looking deeper and with greater resolution at the most remarkable features of the universe, near and far." Eye candy, desktop source material, and it'll make ya feel insignificant too!
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Coolest Space Science Images of 2001 More

Coolest Space Science Images of 2001

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  • All the images I've seen so far are really small (course, if they were large, the site would probably be smoking by now)...

    For the good stuff, try NASA [nasa.gov].

  • The Mars Dust Storm... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:42PM (#2747635) Homepage
    I'm so glad they included a picture of it in the Top 10. Absolutely amazing to look at it.

    Around here (Philadelphia), there was a lot of coverage of the storm, and the Franklin Institute (a "knowledgeum", for you Simpsons fans) had special exhibits all about it. Unfortunately, that coverage stopped completely a few days later when the attacks on 9/11 happened.

    Glad to see I'm not the only who remembers that storm! And I thought sandstorms in the desert were bad...

  • How about... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:54PM (#2747659) Homepage Journal
    this one? [wovoca.com]

    This shot [nasa.gov] from space to earth is cool too.

  • Not Insignificant (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:55PM (#2747661)
    In my view there are two groups of people: those who feel insignificant when confronted by the vastness of nature, and those who don't. Yes, the Universe is enormous, and yes, a 2000m high mountain takes hours to climb, and is huge, and has lasted for millenia. But who or what is more significant, the mountain or quasar that passively sits there, or the human being, aided by his mind and the products of other rational minds (technology) who can perceive or overcome nature? Thunderstorms are significant, but the ability to watch them from space and predict their path is more so. Mountains are impressive, but the ability to climb them aided by a few pounds of equipment is more so. Stars are huge and far away, but human technology and science can reduce them to pictures for your PC desktop. Who is more powerful than who in this case?
    • While I agree with you on the fact that the human evolution is more impressive than any of such natural features of the Universe, this evolution is part of our daily life while much of what exist in the universe is not. The real world that we do not completely understand is not our reality and this is why we feel insignificant when we face it. You can compare us looking at the Universe to the explorer in Renaissance who was looking at the Atlantic Ocean or the Tribesman who was looking at the forest.

    • Re:Not Insignificant (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ZPO ( 465615 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @01:45PM (#2747806)
      Perhaps significant/insignificant is a bad term. I think a better thing to understand is our place in the universe and our importance to its function.

      If the mountains were suddenly removed from the earth we would feel a great loss. If the sun suddenly went dark all human life would be extinguished.

      If all of humanity were removed from the earth, the earth, much less the solar system or universe would never notice. The wind would still blow, rain would still fall, and all would continue.

      Human civilization has existed for but a blink of an eye in the life of the universe. We have grown much and learned much, but we still have far to go in our understanding of the natural world and how to live in it.

      Before his death Carl Sagan convinced the Voyager team to turn the cameras on earth for a last picture of home. In that picture earth is but a small point of light in the star field.

      It matters not whether you believe the universe is the creation of physics or of a supreme being (or somewhere in between). The universe a palace of wonders. Perhaps the "significance" of the human race is that we can see all these things and at least attempt to understand them while still maintaining our sense of wonder. As long as that sense of wonder remains there is hope for the human race.

    • Stars are huge and far away, but human technology and science can reduce them to pictures for your PC desktop. Who is more powerful than who in this case?

      Well, in a star vs scientist fight, I'm still betting on the star. Sure, we can reduce the star to a pretty picture, but the star can reduce us to plasma.

      ...not to mention the possibility of intelligent life around these distant stars. Given our level of knowledge about the universe, those impressed by it can say "we are nothing in comparison," but no one can say "we're the best there is" simply because there's so much that we don't know that could be out there.

      Fine, all the vastness and stuff doesn't impress you, but don't get cocky for it.

    • Wow, one of the more interesting comments I've seen on Slashdot.

      I would partially disagree with you though. When a mountain climber dies, and composts into the mountain, is he still more significant than the mountain? What I am saying is that you make a false distinction between man and nature. Recent debates on cloning have revealed the illusion of a division between the living and the dead. The same universal fabric and "laws" apply to both stars and scientists. Do remember that every molecule in your body was generated by fusion in the center of a star.

      Beyond this, I'm still up in the air as to whether the human pattern is powerful enough to continue growth indefinitely. Will we eventually harness entire galaxy clusters for energy? This is a lot of hubris and a long way from using ropes to get to the top of a mountain.

      Lastly, I can somewhat see your point, if you mean by reducing stars to images, that the universe is really generated and reduce in our minds, and nothing exists explicitly until we make it so. In this case some would equate humans to lesser gods.

      LS
    • Makes you feel all sort of insignificant, doesn't it?

      Yeah.

      SLIGHTLY UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE

      Can we have your liver then?
    • Article: and it'll make ya feel insignificant too!

      Insignificant to whom?

      If it makes you feel insignificant, this means you're making yourself a reduced image of the Universe. In this reduced image you seem small. But that isn't the real size and significance of the Universe, nor is it your real size and significance.

      Try to see the Universe as it really is, without reducing it. Try to see it with you as significant as you really are, and the Universe all the more immense and awesome.

      I don't think anyone can fathom the Universe as it really is, but the attempt can be a wonderful experience.

      The Universe is indeed vast and wondrous.

  • My fave... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mannerism ( 188292 ) <keith-slashdot@spotsoftwar e . c om> on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:57PM (#2747665)
    For me, nothing compares to the Eagle Nebula (M16) pillars images [stsci.edu]. The fact that the universe contains things of such scale and beauty leaves me both wonderfully awestruck and horribly aware of our insignificance.


    • That picture never got me. It's pretty, and it's interesting, but it fails me on the "insignificance" front--probably because it looks too sci-fi, too much like a painting. The universe I picture us buried alive in is way more spooky and empty and sad than that.

      This photo's a decent evocation of it:

      http://www.solarviews.com/r/uranus/uranus.jpg

      [sorry 'bout the plain text, but I assume any "Uranus" href link is "goatse until proven innocent" in this age of reflexive crack-modding]

      • In terms of "insignifigance," this has always been one of the most awe-inspiring photos I've seen:

        http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/to p10_images_010925-10.html [space.com]

        It's not the most beautiful or the most visually stunning, but when you sit and think that every one of those little blobs is (or was) an entire *galaxy* similar to ours, and this is just a tiny, tiny sliver of the universe around us, it's absolutely mind-boggling. If that doesn't make you feel very small and insignificant on a cosmic scale, I don't know what will... ;)

        DennyK

  • Desktop images??!?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by benploni ( 125649 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:57PM (#2747667) Journal
    Those images are so small they can barely be icons on today's desktops! MMmmm, SVG icons...whoops, got distracted. Seriously, desktop wallpaper should be at least 1024x168, with 1600x1200 preferred. It's easy to scale down, but scaling up only happens in movies. (yeah, it pisses me off too)
    • 1024x768 is the correct size you want.

      I am always struggling to find a nice wall paper for my 1600x1024 Apple Cinema 22" display. What I really want is something bigger that I can rescale in GIMP.

      The original format should be compressed with a lossless algorithm to give me the best quality, or at least with the best JPEG settings.

      I would pay for some of these images a reasonable fee just to get them the way I want.

      Unfortunately, they don't even provide this option. And the JPEG compression is just plain bad. Too bad.

      PPA

      • Re:Desktop images??!?! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Fatal0E ( 230910 )
        check out www.artofgregmartin.com

        He's got some really great space scenes that he did by himself but more importantly (to you) is that he even has some renders in 16x9.
      • Try going directly to the Hubble site [stscci.edu]. Thay have TIFFs and PDFs of the images. Even the jpegs are at much better quality. Space.com does not carry the good stuff, it eats too much bandwidth!!!!

    • I just about posted a site which has excellent high-quality copies of great space pics, but at the last minute realized the intelligence of directing thousands of people to simultaneously download large pics from a small-ish university server...

      That said, www.space.com has a good gallery, as does NASA if you dig for it. A search on google for "high definition space photographs" turns up a good selection as well, so happy hunting!
    • Granted these are small Images, but cant everything that a pic is taken of be dropped to a small image. The real thing is massive compared to even the earth, except the asteriod or lenoid picture, but everything else dwarfs us as a civilization. Plus when you look at a lot of those pictures, like the nebula's you have to remember that what you are also actually seeing is something of the past that happened, actually the nebulas picture are probably even older than we are because of the distance that the light has to travel. So yes small picture, but definitly no small object.
  • That's no comet, it's the (very recent! or dust would've covered it up) impression of a Sasquastronaut's foot on Mars, decolorized and the surrounding terrain blacked out to perpetuate the Sasquatch-deniers' fraud. Yet more proof [space.com] of the Sasquatch race, and they're technologically advanced to boot.

  • Coolest space images of all time (Score:3, Informative)

    by GPS Pilot ( 3683 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @02:35PM (#2747919)
    As you might expect, the coolest images of 2001 are not as cool as the coolest images of all time [space.com]. Of these, my favorites are the Eagle nebula [space.com] and the Hubble Deep Field [space.com].
  • This year's images are nice, but the one I like most is here: [space.com]
    For one thing, it could affect us directly... and some scenarios could make it an extinction event.
  • oh, what a cute little setup space.com has. all glorified and brushed up. bah! we're geeks, right? here's something far less propgandized; The Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive [nasa.gov] has hundreds of great pictures.

    One of my favorite ways to get good pictures is to search it for the word "nebula" ( click here [nasa.gov])- it gives you a nice thumbnail index that I much prefre over that space.com "Image Viewer" ...and it has more than ten images!
    • Perhaps I should also mention that you'll find nearly all of the images from that little 'top ten' presentation in equal or higher resolution on the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive [nasa.gov].
    • I was going to post the same thing you just said. I clicked on the link hoping to see inspiring pictures of celestial objects. Instead I got:

      - A pop-under for "World's largest online casino"
      - An X10 "tiny wireless video camera" ad
      - An animated banner "hit the button to win" (at least it wasn't "punch the monkey")
      - A blinking purple and green "Buy Now" for Starry Night software.
      - A bunch of other frame cruft
      - ...and a little thumbnail of the ant nebula next to the headline. Maybe there was a story body too; I didn't notice.

      Bah! With a front page like that, I'm not even going to risk clicking on any of their links. Astronomy picture of the day or the Hubble Heritage Gallery [stsci.edu]are much better sites.

    • Note the variable star to the far left of this animated gif.

      http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011224.html

      Maybe they will name it after me!

      (Don't worry, its not a goat thingy)
  • Not to toot my own horn, but here's a nice(in my opinion) extragalactic picture. I'm an undergrad and my lab group and I took these this past semester. The two images are of the same galaxy, just different contrast settings to hilight different features. If it weren't for the odd shape, they'd be good desktop pics. NGC 660 [virginia.edu]
  • These images would look nice on a calendar, assuming they were blown up to the proper resolution/size. I wonder if we'll be able to get them on Thinkgeek [thinkgeek.com] anytime soon.

    I especially like the one with the huge solar flare :).
  • If you like images of space and the universe check out the artwork by <a href="http://www.artofgregmartin.com">Greg Martin</a>. Although they're rendered images, they're still spectacular.


  • Pictures of space will scare off women, and make your co-workers you're some sort of Star Trek idiot [coteindustries.com]. On the other hand, if you have PROPAGANDA [system26.com] on your desktop, you're helping to promote Linux, women dig your style, and your co-workers will envy your desktop. Simple as that.

    Cheers, and have a merry one,
  • space.com sucks.

    Pop-ups and pop-unders and thousands of cookies...

    Go to the source: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html [nasa.gov]

    t_t_b

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