I feel pretty good when I take a great photo of a sunset or of a mountain.
You know, something mundane compared to the incredible subjects that the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency find to photograph...
I'm a big fan of space, so when I stumble upon breathtaking space photos, I have to share them.
These images of space will knock your socks off, guaranteed!
The Large Magellanic Cloud Rotating
One of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way is the Large Magellanic Cloud, shown rotating in the image above.
The texture you see in the shot is representative of the velocity of the Cloud's stars as they move around the middle of the galaxy in a clockwise rotation.
Editor's Tip: Before you buy another lens, read this guide on why prime lenses are the way to go.
The Meridiani Planum
This gorgeously textured shot is of the region on Mars called the Meridiani Planum.
Though NASA's Opportunity Rover has been wandering around Mars for 13 years, this photo was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
What you see above is various layers of bedrock that have been eroded into these gorgeous patterns.
Space Dust in the Small Magellanic Cloud
In this photo of the Small Magellanic Cloud, you can see the space dust and stars in this formation thanks to the infrared camera on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The main body of the Cloud is comprised of the stars that form a bar shape from top to bottom as well as the "wing" of stars that jut out to the right.
The blue colors are old stars while new stars are embedded in the green and red space dust.
Learn More:
- 31 of the Best Images of Cassini's Mission to Saturn
- Five Years Later, the Mars Curiosity Rover is Still Taking Great Photos
Liftoff of the ESA's Sentinel-3B Satellite
Not all amazing photos of space are actually taken in space...
This photo of the European Space Agency's Sentinel-3B satellite readying for launch has both spectacular scale and color.
Launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia on April 25, 2018, the satellite will help the ESA monitor changes in the environment here on Earth.
Jupiter in High Definition
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is the largest and longest lasting storm known to humankind, and is actually larger than Earth itself.
But, the Great Red Spot is shrinking...
Based on data from the last 150 years, the Great Red Spot is just one-third the size that it was a century-and-a-half ago.
Editor's Tip: Your photos deserve to hang on the wall. See what your images look like as fine art.
The Northern Lights as You've Never Seen Them
Taken with the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the Suomi NPP satellite, this image shows the Northern Lights as they extend far above the northern parts of North America.
The sensors on the Suomi satellite detected the light emissions that showed up as energetic particles as they rained down towards the oxygen and nitrogen of Earth's upper atmosphere.
I'd say the result is one heck of a photo!
Saturn's Rings Up Close
Here's a fun fact: the particles that comprise Saturn's rings can be as small as a grain of sand and as large as a mountain.
Despite their variation in size, these particles are mostly water and ice, though the reason for the variation in coloring of Saturn's rings remains the subject of debate.
This image was taken using red, green, and blue spectral filters by NASA's Cassini narrow-angle camera from a distance of about 1.27 million miles away.
Learn More:
- This NASA Time-Lapse Shows One Year of Life on Earth From 1 Million Miles Away
- These Hubble Space Telescope Photos Will Absolutely Boggle Your Mind
The Bubble Nebula
Though the Bubble Nebula looks like it might be a delicate structure, it's more likely to be home to violent forces.
At top left of the bubble is an O-type star, which is about 45 times more massive than our sun. Additionally, there is evidence of intense stellar winds and radiation that are the cause of the shape of the nebula, blowing its gasses outward toward the surrounding molecular cloud.
Whatever the case, it's a beautiful sight that was captured in a composite of numerous Hubble Space Telescope images.
The Ring Nebula
At a relatively close 2,000 light-years away, the Ring Nebula is one of the most famous ring-like structures in the universe.
In this shot by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Ring Nebula shows it's classic donut shape wrapped around the middle of a football-shaped gas cloud.
The gases shown in the photo represent what's left of the dying star at the center of the nebula, which was once like our sun, but is now barely noticeable.
And there you have it...nine breathtaking space photos to serve as a reminder that there is beauty all around us, and we need to capture it with our cameras - no matter how big or small those cameras might be!