The APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) is a wonderful resource for viewing absolutely amazing, and breathtaking images of space. It takes these images from sources in space, that is, Hubble, and from the ground, utilizing pictures from both amateur and professional astronomers.

This jaw dropping picture of the Sun and the Earth caused me to stop what I was doing, and just stare at it for several minutes. To me, this picture contains a lot of beauty, contrasting the harsh sunlight with the gentle curves of the Earth, the pristine white and gold of our space station with the deep blues and browns of our mother planet, and the mechanical beauty of human engineering with the natural beauty of, well, nature.

Of course, beauty is quite subjective, however, I find this picture to be aesthetically pleasing, as well as visually interesting. It contains a theme of human struggle against an uncaring nature, as well as deep undercurrents of the grand majesty of our environment.

I have always believed that upon each moment is unto itself a universe in its own right; full of life, grandeur, and wonder.

And Deepak Chopra says all scientists are a pile of unimaginative loons. I agree with the Bad Astronomer on this one. He sees beauty in Hubble’s grand images, I see beauty in APOD.