Best Space Pictures of the Week - Nov. 24, 2012

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Mercury Photos Reveal Strange 'Pie Crust' Surface

NASA/The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Smithsonian Institution

New photos of the baked planet Mercury, the closest world to our sun, have revealed odd formations that look uncannily like cosmic pies, evidence of potential "ghost" craters hidden underground, scientists say. [Full Story]

Spectacular Star Explosion Aftershock Revealed in Photo

Herschel: Q. Nguyen Luong & F. Motte, HOBYS Key Program consortium, Herschel SPIRE/PACS/ESA consortia. XMM-Newton: ESA/XMM-Newton

A pair of European space telescopes have captured the aftershock of a devastating supernova —a snapshot in time of a star's explosive death. [Full Story]

Stargazer Captures Striking Nebula View (Photo)

Bill Snyder Astrophotography

A veteran stargazer and photographer captured this spectacular image of emission nebula Sh2-112 Sharpless. [Full Story]

Astronauts Get Stunning View of Active Russian Volcanoes

NASA

The 240-mile (390-kilometer) perch of the International Space Station gives the astronauts aboard a unique perspective on Earth's most stunning features. [Full Story]

Amazing Leonid Meteor Shower Photos Captured By Stargazers

leonid meteor shower, 2012 leonid meteor shower photos, leonids, comet tempel-tuttle, meteor showers, meteor photos, shooting stars display, skywatching, amateur astronomy

The Leonid meteor shower peaked early Saturday (Nov. 17), and some night sky watchers caught a great view. [Full Story]

Giant Sun Eruption Captured in NASA Video

NASA/SDO

The sun unleashed a monster eruption of super-hot plasma Friday (Nov. 16) in back-to-back solar storms captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft. [Full Story]

Photos: Mars Caves and Lava Tubes

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this photo of a cave skylight on the southeastern flank of Pavonis Mons, a large volcano in Mars' Tharsis Region. The pit is about 180 meters wide. [Full Photo Gallery]

'Super-Jupiter' Discovery Dwarfs Solar System's Largest Planet

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger

In a rare direct photo of a world beyond Earth, astronomers have spotted a planet 13 times more massive than our own solar system's Jupiter. [Full Story]

ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)

This artist’s impression shows the surface of the distant dwarf planet Makemake. This dwarf planet is about two thirds of the size of Pluto, and travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto, but closer to the Sun than Eris, the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System. [Full Photo Gallery]

Art in Space: 'The Last Pictures' by Trevor Paglen (Photos)

Trevor Paglen and Creative Time

"The Last Pictures" art project was created by Trevor Paglen to travel into space on the Echostar 16 satellite, where it my last for a billion years. [Full Photo Gallery]

Giant Super-Jupiter Planet Discovered (Photos)

NAOJ / Subaru / J. Carson (College of Charleston) / T. Currie (University Toronto)

False color, near infrared image of the Kappa Andromedae star system as seen by the Subaru Telescope in Hawai'i. Almost all of the light of the host star, on which the image is centered, has been removed through image processing. A Super-Jupiter planet is clearly visible to the upper left. [Full Photo Gallery]

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
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Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.