This vacation included a sight to remember. Pictured above, a picturesque starscape capped a serene seascape as seen from Turkey this past August. In the above digitally stitched panorama, the Gelidonya Lighthouse shines in the foreground before a calm Mediterranean Sea . On the left, Jupiter is the brightest point in the image and since on the same side of the Sun as the Earth, was near its yearly brightest. Glowing just shy of magnitude -3, Jupiter was brighter than any star in the sky, and brighter even than Mars was during its famously bright opposition of 2003 August . On the right, the band of the Milky Way Galaxy fades into distant atmospheric haze above the horizon . Jupiter is nearing the closest part of its elliptical orbit to the Sun and so will appear even brighter during its next opposition in 2010 September.

Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun . The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy . The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies . The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies . But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In the above all-sky map from the COBE satellite , radiation in the Earth's direction of motion appears blueshifted and hence hotter, while radiation on the opposite side of the sky is redshifted and colder. The map indicates that the Local Group moves at about 600 kilometers per second relative to this primordial radiation . This high speed was initially unexpected and its magnitude is still unexplained. Why are we moving so fast ? What is out there?

The expanding debris cloud from the explosion of a massive star is captured in this multiwavelength composite , combining x-ray and optical images from the Chandra and Hubble telescopes. Identified as E0102-72, the supernova remnant lies about 190,000 light-years away in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud . A strong cosmic source of x-rays , E0102 was imaged by the Chandra X-ray Observatory shortly after its launch in 1999. In celebration of Chandra's 10th anniversary , this colorful view of E0102 and its environs was created, including additional Chandra data. An analysis of all the data indicates that the overall shape of E0102 is most likely a cylinder that is viewed end-on rather than a spherical bubble. The intriguing result implies that the massive star's explosion has produced a shape similar to what is seen in some planetary nebulae associated with lower mass stars. At the distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, this field of view spans about 150 light-years.

Today, planet Earth passes through the plane of Saturn's rings . From the perspective of earthbound astronomers , Saturn's rings will be edge-on. The problem is, Saturn itself is now very close to the Sun, low on horizon after sunset, so good telescopic images will be difficult to come by. Still, this composite of Saturn views taken from 2004 - 2009 (lower right to upper left) illustrates the change in ring tilt over the last six years and includes a nearly edge-on ring view, based on images captured earlier this year. While Saturn's south pole is clearly seen in the sequence, particularly at the lower right, it will be hidden in the coming years. Saturn's north pole will be increasingly visible, along with the tilting rings, as the planet emerges this fall in the predawn sky.

Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune . A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter with the solar system's most distant gas giant planet. But looking through the Voyager 2 data 20 years later , amateur image processor (and philosophy professor) Ted Stryk discovered something no one had recognized before -- images that show the shadow of Despina in transit across Neptune's blue cloud tops . His composite view of Despina and its shadow is composed of four archival frames taken on August 24, 1989, separated by nine minutes. Despina itself has been artificially brightened to make it easier to see. In ancient Greek mythology, Despina is a daughter of Poseidon (the Roman god Neptune).

Just one minute before midnight EDT, Friday, August 28, the Space Shuttle Discovery began a long arc into a cloudy sky. Following the launch, a bright and remarkably colorful trail was captured in this time exposure from the Banana River Viewing Site , looking east toward pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. On STS-128 , Discovery docked with the International Space Station Sunday evening. The 13-day mission will exchange space station crew members and deliver more than 7 tons of supplies and equipment. Of course, the equipment includes the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill ( COLBERT ).

Unusual shadows and dark rings appeared around Saturn near its equinox last month. At that time -- early August -- Saturn's ring plane pointed directly at the Sun. Visible above , Saturn's moon Tethys casts a shadow visible only on the far right. Saturn's own shadow blacks out a large swath of rings on the right. The night side of Saturn glows with ringshine -- sunlight reflected by ring particles back onto Saturn. Images near equinox at Saturn are giving astronomers a chance to search for unexpected shadows that may illuminate previously unknown features of Saturn's complex ring system . Cassini , the robotic spacecraft orbiting Saturn that took this image , is not expected to survive to the next Saturnian equinox in 15 years.

Many stars like our Sun were formed in open clusters. The above pictured open cluster, M25 , contains thousands of stars and is about two thousand light years distant . The stars in this cluster all formed together about 90 million years ago. The bright young stars in M25 appear blue. Open clusters , also called galactic clusters, contain fewer and younger stars than globular clusters . Also unlike globular clusters , open clusters are generally confined to the plane of our Galaxy . M25 is visible with binoculars towards the constellation of the Archer ( Sagittarius ).

These bacteria could survive on another planet. In an Earth lab, Deinococcus radiodurans (D. rad) survive extreme levels of radiation , extreme temperatures, dehydration , and exposure to genotoxic chemicals. Amazingly, they even have the ability to repair their own DNA , usually with 48 hours. Known as an extremophile , bacteria such as D. rad are of interest to NASA partly because they might be adaptable to help human astronauts survive on other worlds. A recent map of D. rad's DNA might allow biologists to augment their survival skills with the ability to produce medicine, clean water, and oxygen. Already they have been genetically engineered to help clean up spills of toxic mercury . Likely one of the oldest surviving life forms, D. rad was discovered by accident in the 1950s when scientists investigating food preservation techniques could not easily kill it. Pictured above, Deinococcus radiodurans grow quietly in a dish.

Slide your cursor over the image to identify three members of this intriguing gathering of galaxies . Known as the NGC 7771 Group, they lie almost 200 million light-years away toward the high flying constellation Pegasus . The largest galaxy, barred spiral NGC 7771 , is itself about 75,000 light-years across, but will someday find itself part of a larger galaxy still. As the galaxies of the group make repeated close passages, they will finally merge into one very large galaxy. Played out over hundreds of millions of years, the process is understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way .