Best Space Pictures of the Week - Dec. 1, 2012

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'Earthshine' Illuminates Stunning Crescent Moon

Vegastar Carpentier

A waxing crescent moon is aglow with earthshine in this beautiful night sky photo. [Full Story]

Astronaut Photo Showcases Fire & Ice

NASA Earth Observatory

Fire and ice merge in a photo of ash rising from an eruption at Russia's Karymsky volcano, captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. [Full Story]

Saturn's Second 'Pac-Man' Moon Revealed in NASA Photos

NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/SWRI

New images from a NASA spacecraft orbiting Saturn have revealed a view any retro-gamer would love: a second moon with a heat tattoo of the 1980s video game icon Pac-Man. The photos show Saturn’s Pac-Man moons Tethys and Mimas. [Full Story]

Biggest Black Hole Blast Ever Could Solve Cosmological Mystery

ESO/L. Calçada

The European Southern Observatory has picked up the most powerful blast of matter from a black hole to date, with energy in it is equivalent to 2 trillion times the output of the sun. [Full Story]

Huge Saturn Vortex Swirls in Stunning NASA Photos

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

An amazing new photo from NASA's Cassini probe orbiting Saturn has sighted a monster storm raging on the ringed planet's north pole. [Full Story]

Dazzling Jupiter Rises Over Himalayan Telescope

Ajay Talwar / The World at Night

-- A stunning new night sky photo shows the glowing planet Jupiter rising over the Himalayas. [Full Story]

'Born-Again' Nebula Foreshadows Death of Our Sun

Main image: X-ray: ESA/XMM-Newton; optical: NSF/NOAO/KPNO; inset: NASA/CXC/IAA-CSIC/M. Guerrero et al; optical: NASA/STScI

New images of the "born-again" planetary nebula Abell 30 give a glimpse of what our sun might look like in 5 billion years. [Full Story]

Mile-Wide Asteroid's Many Faces Revealed in NASA Photos

NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA has unveiled astonishingly detailed radar views of a mile-wide asteroid that zipped safely by Earth this month — its closest approach to our planet until the year 2488. [Full Story]

Lunar Eclipse Photos Show Earth's Shadow on Moon

David Matthews

The moon dipped through only part of Earth's shadow Wednesday (Nov. 28) in a penumbral lunar eclipse. See stargazers' photos of the minor lunar eclipse. [Full Story]

Amazing Total Solar Eclipse View Over Australia

Tunc Tezel / The World at Night

A total solar eclipse appears with beautiful halo in this stunning sky photo by photographer Tunc Tezel. Tenzel took this photo from Australia during the total solar eclipse of Nov. 14, 2012. [Full Story]

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

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.