This photo was taken on January 22, 2012 in Fairbanks North Star Borough County, Alaska, US, using a Nikon D5000. The 'explodey' look is due to perspective from looking right up the magnetic field lines. The aurora in the middle of the explosion is pointing straight down at the camera.

Credit: Jason Ahrns

In this spectacular image, observations using infrared light and X-ray light see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon.

Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, and STScI

The bubble nebula NGC 7635 - it doesn't have a lot to do with Holographic Dark Information Energy, but you have to start these articles with an image.

Credit: Croman/an APOD for November 7 2005.

(C) Christian von Koenigsegg

Shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey manually flew Discovery to join the two ships together. They have a combined mass of over 1.2 million pounds. This was Discovery’s 13th and final docking to the orbiting outpost. Discovery also was the first shuttle to dock to the ISS on the STS-96 mission on May 29, 1999.

(C) NASA

Although they've been together for about 4.5 billion years, the sun and Earth still seem to have a downright electric relationship, based on a colorful show of northern lights seen on Valentine's Day. Above, a short but stunning aurora lights up the sky over Bø in Vesterålen, Norway.

(C) Photograph by Øystein Lunde Ingvaldsen