Once upon a time, newspapers and magazines (remember LIFE?) were the main conduit of powerful images to our homes. However, even with newspapers folding and magazine circulation stagnating, it has never been easier to get astonishing photographs in front of people, thanks to the Internet. Throw the heavens into the mix, as both subject and platform for photographers, and you get some amazing stuff, like we noticed this week.
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More than 9,000 years ago, a catastrophic volcanic eruption created a huge caldera on the southern end of Onekotan Island, one of the Kuril Islands, located off the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Today, the ancient Tao-Rusyr Caldera is filled by the deep blue waters of Kal’tsevoe Lake. Photo: NASA.
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Space Weather is one of our favorite haunts. It has a large and dedicated following, every single one of whom, it sometimes seems, has a camera attached to a very good telescope. That results in stunning images like this sunspot by Paul Haese of Blackwood, South Australia. “By unleashing six C-class solar flares in the past 48 hours,” the website reported Tuesday, “sunspot 1029 has become the most active sunspot of the year so far.” You can also watch its progression across the Sun’s surface on this movie clip.
This past Monday night, the Moon and Jupiter were in close alignment, and Alan Friedman of Buffalo, New York, was one of many contributors to share his photo of the conjunction.
Pointing a camera toward space has been a favorite pursuit of photographers since the invention of the art. But in recent decades we’ve been able to put the camera in space and point it back toward Earth, and NASA’s Earth Observatory website showcases the magnificent perspective that is offered from orbit.
The results can be awe-inspiring, such as a volcanic plume rising from the island of Montserrat. They can provide clear evidence of man’s presence on the planet, as from this fire at a fuel facility in Puerto Rico, or cargo ships clustered in Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal in Egypt. And, of course, they can be the source of valuable scientific information, such as identifying the areas impacted by tsunamis or weather patterns that can significantly impact the climate.
Or they can simply find a beautiful spot we would likely never get to experience in person.