Man, that is brighter than I expected.

I can has gravity??

Another reason to thank the stars:

Heavy elements are equally essential for life: Witness the oxygen we breathe, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood. When a star explodes in a lesser galaxy, this raw material for life shoots out into space at millions of miles an hour and is lost. But in the Milky Way, the elements encounter interstellar gas and dust and are restrained by the strength of the galaxy’s immense gravitational field. These impediments slow their speed, so they can enrich star-forming gas clouds with the ingredients for new generations of stars and planets. That’s what happened 4.6 billion years ago, when the sun and the Earth emerged from a now-vanished interstellar nebula.

For a more spiritual take, watch this.

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED …

… that there are 10.3 trillion stars for every person on earth. I can’t pinpoint why, but that’s one of the most moving statistic I’ve heard.

Footage from NASA’s Cassini mission. It speaks for itself.

I know I’m late to post this … but this time lapse of the lunar eclipse is absolutely incredible.

Good morning.

You are looking at the Mississippi River from space. 21 more photos from the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites here.