Spiral galaxies are among the most magnificent objects in space. Grand and sprawling, they are icons of the night sky. Like a snapshot of coins tossed in the air, we see them at all angles, from face-on disks to nearly edge-on lines. And sometimes we catch them so precisely to the side that what we see is hard to believe is real. But then we get pictures like this one from Hubble of the galaxy NGC 4452: [Click to galactinate, and yes, you really want to.] Holy perpendicularity! There are lots o ...read more

Y’know, when you looked at maps of Egypt in school, you could see the Nile cutting through the desert, but you didn’t get the real perspective of where the people were, what that river means. Space travel makes that perspective a bit easier to soak in: [Click to enphaoronate.] That, my friends, is the Nile delta as seen by the International Space Station on October 28. The station was well south of that area, about 800 km (500 miles) south if I’ve done the math correctly. ...read more