Saturn From Titan, 1978, David Egge, Acrylic On Board.

The Tadpoles of IC 410 : This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard suburban skies with narrowband filters. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust. Below and right of center are the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster’s central young stars. IC 410 lies some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga. via NASA

Chaos theory, the principles underpinning certain nonlinear equations, also requires us to adopt a probabilistic description of many natural phenomena. The sizes and orbital positions of the planets in our solar system, for example, depend sensitively on the starting condition for solar system formation. If we ran the creation experiment again with slightly different parameters, we would get a different collection of planets with different orbital characteristics. But the results are not purely random. If we produced thousands of solar systems, again with similar but not exactly the same starting conditions, we would obtain a well-defined distribution of planet properties and planetary orbits. Although we cannot make exact predictions for any particular experiment, in principle we can determine the odds of getting any one type of planet or solar system. This intricate interplay between chance and determinism occurs throughout our physical universe and can even be applied to the consideration of how, and in what form, life can evolve.

Fred Adams, ‘Origins Of Existence: How Life Emerged In The Universe’ (2002) 

(via sagansense)

Overhead view of the caldera at the summit of Olympus Mons on Mars, the tallest volcano in the Solar System. View from the Mars Express space probe. (NASA)

Hubble Sees a Star Called HBC 672 and the Bat Shadow : A young star’s unseen, planet-forming disk casts a huge shadow across a more distant cloud in a star-forming region. (via NASA)

UD-4L Orbital Dropship

Movie: Aliens UI Design: Fantasy II Film Effects, L.A. Effects Group, Stan Winston Studio

Higher - Daniel Solovev

‘distant.03′

Comet NEAT revealed in close-up by the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona on May 7, 2004.

(HubbleSite)

Orbiting - 210216

An image of Jupiter taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light on Aug. 25, 2020, is giving researchers an entirely new view of the giant planet and offers insights into the altitude and distribution of the planet's haze and particles. This complements Hubble’s visible-light pictures that show the ever-changing cloud patterns. In this photo, the parts of Jupiter’s atmosphere that are at higher altitude, especially over the poles, look red from atmospheric particles absorbing ultraviolet light. Conversely, the blue-hued areas represent the ultraviolet light being reflected off the planet. A new storm at upper left, which erupted on Aug. 18, 2020, is grabbing the attention of scientists in this image. The “clumps” trailing the white plume appear to be absorbing ultraviolet light, similar to the center of the Great Red Spot, and Red Spot Jr. directly below it. This provides researchers with more evidence that this storm may last longer on Jupiter than most storms.

Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL team