2012: Pictures from space

From Mars Curiosity’s self portrait to a destructive Saturn cyclone, view of cosmic highlights from November 2012.

Satellites, balloon-borne instruments and ground-based devices make 30 million observations of the atmosphere each day. Yet these measurements still give an incomplete picture of the complex interactions within the membrane surrounding Earth. Enter climate models. NASA models and supercomputing have created a colorful new view of the way aerosols move through the atmosphere.  NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Fellow travelers: Several tiny satellites are photographed by an Expedition 33 crew member on the International Space Station.  NASA

Spectacular jets dance in elliptical galaxy Hercules A, powered by the gravitational energy of a super massive black hole in the galaxy's core.  NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O'Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The temperature on Saturn's moons Mimas (left) and Tethys (right) is not evenly distributed. Indeed, as thermal images from the Cassini spacecraft show, it actually forms a strangely evocative Pac Man pattern—complete with a crater on Mimas about to get gobbled.  NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSFC / SWRI

How fine and tenuous are Saturn's seemingly massive rings? Consider that the tiny moon Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across), here seen as a dot in the upper left hand corner of the frame, may be many times more massive than the entire ring system combined. That's how fine and tenuous.  NASA / JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

This may look like an Earthly hurricane but it's actually something much, much larger: an enormous cyclone that's swirling above Saturn's north pole, captured in a raw image by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 27, 2012.  NASA

China's space program continues to grow. Here, a Long March-3B rocket carrying a satellite heads toward space, after blasting off from the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Nov. 27, 2012 in Xichang, Sichuan Province of China.  China Foto Press / ZUMA PRESS

A high-resolution self-portrait by Curiosity rover arm camera, taken on Oct. 31, 2012. NASA's Curiosity used the Mars hand lens imager (MAHLI) to capture a set of 55 high-resolution images, which were then stitched together to create this image.  NASA / JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft is seen shortly after it landed in a remote area near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 19, 2012. Astronauts Sunita Williams, Akihiko Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko returned from four months onboard the International Space Station.  Bill Ingalls / NASA

# pictures thankfully shared from: science.time.com