dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET? 

LIKE THIS JUST LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE A PERSON’S BACKYARD. LIKE YEA A LITTLE DUSTY MAYBE THERE WAS A SANDSTORM BUT THAT’S COOL I’M JUST GONNA WALK DOWN TO THE STORE P S Y C H YOU’RE ON MARS BICH!

i hate to be rude and intrude on this post but we have decent pictures of the surface Venus too! 

#venus has a low render distance

See also below Saturn’s moon, Titan. Mars has a blue horizon at sunset so it looks even more Earth-like in this image:

Source

Also: Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

Infrared Echoes of a Black Hole Eating a Star via NASA http://ift.tt/2cIf9V1

the moon knows.

Jupiter and four of its moons, next to Crescent Moon. (Source)

mother. friggin’. space. man. x

:’)

Everything is too big….

Our Amazing Solar System

sorry what

That header photo doesn’t do the dragon justice. (For shame!). Here’s NASA’s own photo:

(Source [Because NASA is funded by taxpayer money, all their images are public domain, BTW])

THE TIME HAS COME

C-can we come back to the hole in the sun bit

i think there’s something more profound than our reaction to oppy’s last words. oppy herself did not say those words. in fact, she only sent a last batch of data that included mentioning her battery was going low and that light levels were also low. this was supposed to have been interpreted as a precaution. instead, it was interpreted in an entirely different manner, and i think i know why. it haunts us because it screams “i’m alone and scared” and that in and of itself is so terrifyingly human. we’re in this life (as far as we know) completely alone and we essentially die alone (no one leaves with us) and to imagine this little machine on a distant planet with no rescue admitting she’s alone and scared makes us aware of our humanity and our existence. someone mentioned it on here before but how many times have you sent a text saying “my phone is dying” to your mom or dad or friend? how many times have you been afraid to walk home without your phone? we connect to this loss of oppy because we are aware of our mortality, staring us in the face; a perpetually endless abyss. oppy never said the exact words “my battery is low and it’s getting dark”, she sent a string of numbers that indicated that her light levels were dying and her battery was too. but even more than that, she never said “it’s getting dark, i’m afraid because i’m alone and scared”, we, as humans, just heard what we want to because, we too, are alone and afraid in the dark.

NASA has released new images of Jupiter, taken by the Juno Spacecraft.

Where were you?

Did you know?

Who are we to you?

PLEASE,,, take me to the planets, I’ll do anything, anything to get away from Earth p l e a s e

Beauty of the Universe II - Colors

Jupiter’s moon, Callisto.

is no one going to explain what all the lights are

they’re impact craters! callisto is one of the most heavily cratered object in the solar system, and as far as my very basic research has just gone, the light parts are essentially iced over impact craters

so, essentially, we’re looking at something with a very frosty/icy surface. they’re bright because they reflect the sun!

Orione (by MapOfEurasia)