Venus and a crescent moon. Taken in my back garden during my second attempt at shooting anything astronomical but the moon.

Conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter on November 9th 2011. Location: the Netherlands. Combination of 2 shots.

This little planet 01

Source MI Mars MER rover Opportunity image details annotated and marked to show the symmetry of the well ordered crystallinity casts in the Eagle crater deposits during early 2004, on Sol 039 , shortly after the spacecraft landing. The 3D patterned objects are very well ordered and are now casts of open void. Others have been imaged as solid, positive space objects, similar to the multitudinous 'blueberry' spheroids of Mars seen in most of the Opportunity rover photos over a five year period. Items similar to the Meridiani objects have now been found by Electron microscope imaging in the meteorite NWA 998. Along with the spheroidal rimmed or petaled items are sectioned fibers in close association found on Mars and also in NWA 998. 'Raw' source image 1M131651988EFF0544P2933M2M , a sol 039 photo taken by the MI camera on Opportunity.

The MER robotic rover Opportunity took these Eagle Crater landing area images soon after landing in 2004. The patterned objects in the layers of the Martian surface exposed by the Eagle crater impact have shown a very well ordered symmetric shaping to the 'stand-alone' items which are present in large number on the Meridiani basin landing area. Similar items are found on Earth, in deep ocean methane clathrate ice deposits underwater. Other similar shapes have been found in rock on Earth and identified as fossils in the mid-Twentieth century, then later explained as possible mineral deposits. These items appear linked to the similar shaped Mars 'blueberry' spheroids found across the two MER rover paths. 1M131651988EFF0544P2933M2M , Micro Imager, sol 039

The MER rover Opportunity took Micro Imager closeups of Bounce Rock on Mars in early 2004, and this is a section of the 'MI' image 1M134315240EFF08AYP2956M2M1 . Slight alterations have been added to the dynamic range and linearity equally across the image frame. Other than the text annotations, no other additions were made to the source 'raw' image. The details are as true and accurate as I can produce them. 1M134315240EFF08AYP2956M2M1 raw image gallery, Opportunity rover MI closeup. marscloseup