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Coolest Space Science Images of 2001

Posted by CmdrTaco on 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!

19 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. The Mars Dust Storm... by thesolo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  2. How about... by jsse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    this one?

    This shot from space to earth is cool too.

    1. Re:How about... by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 2

      Not so cool as this one

      --

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      Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  3. Not Insignificant by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

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    1. Re:Not Insignificant by ZPO · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Not Insignificant by LS · · Score: 2

      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

      --
      There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    3. Re:Not Insignificant by mav[LAG] · · Score: 2

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

      Yeah.

      SLIGHTLY UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE

      Can we have your liver then?

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  4. My fave... by Mannerism · · Score: 3, Informative

    For me, nothing compares to the Eagle Nebula (M16) pillars images. The fact that the universe contains things of such scale and beauty leaves me both wonderfully awestruck and horribly aware of our insignificance.

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  5. Desktop images??!?! by benploni · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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)

    1. Re:Desktop images??!?! by Fatal0E · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --

      BOSTON SUCKS!
    2. Re:Desktop images??!?! by hughk · · Score: 2

      Try going directly to the Hubble site. 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!!!!

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
  6. Re:Wacked picture captions by moyix · · Score: 2, Informative

    On a slightly more serious note, it seems you can also put HTML into that caption, which opens up the possibility of all sorts of nasty JS exploits. Silly CGI designers...

  7. Coolest space images of all time by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 3, Informative

    As you might expect, the coolest images of 2001 are not as cool as the coolest images of all time. Of these, my favorites are the Eagle nebula and the Hubble Deep Field.

    --
    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
  8. pathetic by Khopesh · · Score: 2

    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 has hundreds of great pictures.

    One of my favorite ways to get good pictures is to search it for the word "nebula" ( click here )- it gives you a nice thumbnail index that I much prefre over that space.com "Image Viewer" ...and it has more than ten images!

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    1. Re:pathetic by Khopesh · · Score: 2

      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.

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      Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
  9. Calendar? by Mr.+Sketch · · Score: 2

    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 anytime soon.

    I especially like the one with the huge solar flare :).

    --
    Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
  10. Why is this modded up ... OLD, offtopic pictures! by ian+stevens · · Score: 2

    While the above images are cool, they don't fit the timeline and the latter image doesn't even fall into the category of "space image", ie. of an extraterrestrial nature. The story title is "Coolest Space Science Images Of 2001 ". The first image in the above comment is dated 1996 and the second is from 2000. We have also seen these images countless times.

    How this got modded up as "Interesting", I'll never know.

    ian, playing the part of The Grinch.

    --
    ian
  11. Re:Too "human" by DennyK · · Score: 2

    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

    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

  12. Catch a clue: by talks_to_birds · · Score: 2
    space.com sucks.

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

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

    t_t_b

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