The ice mountains of Norgay Montes on left, with Hillary Montes along the horizon and Sputnik Planum to right. Clouds in the thin atmosphere appear to the top.
Recently (12/5/25 and 13/5/25) Astronomy Picture of the Day published two reconstructions (one each on consecutive days from data collected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft) of how our home galaxy The Milky Way looks from the side and from above.
Side view:-
From above. Our sun is circled below within the galaxy’s Orion Arm:-
Well there is one if only you have the right viewpoint, such as SOHO (the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory) has.
This picture of Comet ATLAS (see Astronomy Picture of the Day for 20/1/25) was taken by SOHO as the comet passed closest to the sun and shows at least six tails in four different colours. The dark circle to the lower edge is of course due to SOHO’s sun obscuring barrier.
Far out (as they say) gives a particular view of Earth and its Moon.
Astronomy Picture of the Day on 23/11/24 showed a composite of two photographs of Earth from the vicinity of other planets. A picture taken from near Saturn by the Cassini probe and another from Mercury orbit taken by Messenger:-
I never tire of seeing pictures of this feature of the surface of Mars. Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar system. This one was taken by NASA’s Viking probe and was Astronomy Picture of the Day‘s post for 10/12/24.
Imagine the violence of this. A solar prominence erupting in 2011. This time-lapse video covers 90 minutes (one new frame every 24 seconds.) It was captured in ultra-violet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory. From You Tube via Astronomy Picture of the Day for 18/8/24.
From Earth, the Moon, because it is tidally locked, seems stationary. This representation is assembled from photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and shows a full rotation of the Moon condensed into 24 seconds.