Photos: How telescopes, space stations & voyaging crafts photographed Earth
Telescopes, space stations and voyaging crafts have captured some of the most iconic and unusual shots of the world as we know it, and didn’t know it. From the Pillars of Creation to the Bubble Nebula, another of the Hubble Telescope’s gift of imagery to us, see a selection of images that have taken years, even decades of exploration, image development and science to bring to us back on earth.
In June 2019, the volcano on Raikoke, part of the uninhabited Kuril Islands between Russia and Japan, erupted without warning spewing dust and ash into the sky. Luckily, the International Space Station was passing over the region, and was able to capture the drama before the ash cloud settled in a few minutes.(Photo courtesy NASA/ ISS; CEO)
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This image of Thor’s Helmet, the cloud of gas and dust named for its bulging shape and wings was shot aboard the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite observatory, with optical observations from Cerro Tololo in Chile.(Photo courtesy [JA Toala & M.A. Guerrero (IAA-CSIC), Y-H. Chu (UIUC/ASIAA), RA Gruendl (UIUC), S Mazlin, J Harvey, D Verschatse & R Gilbert (SSRO-South) and ESA])
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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image. The towering pillars are about 5 light-years tall.(Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))
A close-up from afar, the International Space Station captured this shot of Iran’s arid Kavir region in 2014. The marbled region is some 65-km across, featuring rock formations and erosion. The dark path in the centre is a lake, the odd lighter patch next to it is a sand sheet.(Photo courtesy NASA/ ISS; CEO)
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Another Hubble gem, this show of the Bubble nebula, 7,100 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, features a star that is 45 times larger than our sun.(Photo courtesy NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))
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Modus Vivendi (1000 people – 1000 Homes), 2000: In this self-portrait, a work of mixed media on canvas, Kallat appears as a swaggering, bespectacled juggler of heart and brain. The painting is an exploration of selfhood in the city of Mumbai, where he grew up and lives. The individual, lost in the multitudes, wanders in a state of perpetual disorientation, as reflected in the work. The radiating streaks of red, orange and green, reminiscent of thermal imagery, were achieved by texturing the canvas with layers of paint or canvas and then peeling off some parts to attain the desired visual effect.
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Sheer delight: While out surveying the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago, Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists captured rare footage of a “glass octopus”, named so because it is completely see-through. What one does see when one shines a light on it is its optic nerve, eyeballs, and digestive tract. Even though this species has been known to science since 1918, scientists were forced to study about this animal through specimens found in the guts of predators, before this sighting.
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Herald / Harbinger is a permanent public art installation by Ben Rubin and Jer Thorp. It broadcasts the sounds of the Bow Glacier cracking and breaking 200 km away, to the centre of Calgary, one of Canada’s largest cities, almost in real time. The sounds and imagery shaped by data from a glacial observatory are broadcast through 16 speakers and seven LED arrays.
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Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022): The movie explores the many dimensions of parenthood and love through the story of a Chinese-American immigrant named Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) who, while struggling to run a failing laundromat business, uses her newfound powers to travel across multiple realities to save the world and work on her strained relationships with her loved ones. It’s a family drama that’s fast-paced, funny and, above all, tackles earnestly the idea of healing from intergenerational trauma.
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At first sight: For centuries, sunspots were thought to be Mercury passing across the Sun. By the early 17th century, with the invention of the telescope, astronomers could get a clearer look. In 1610, Galileo Galilei (who first used the telescope to observe space) in Italy and his British contemporary Thomas Harriot identified these as spots on the Sun. Seen here are 35 drawings of sunspots created by Galileo between June 2 and July 8, 1612.
