Best Space Photos of the Week – Oct. 3, 2015

New Maps of Ceres Highlight Mysterious Bright Spots, Giant Mountain

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

New maps of Ceres show the dwarf planet's mysterious bright spots and huge, pyramid-shaped mountain in a new light. [Read the whole story.]

Fly Through Pluto Moon Charon's Giant Canyon in Spectacular New Video

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Amazing new images show the enormous canyon system on Pluto's big moon Charon in unprecedented detail. [Read the whole story.]

Intense Solar Flare Unleashed from Unruly Sunspot

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

An intense solar flare took out low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean earlier today (Sept. 28), and the unstable sunspot is likely to erupt again. [Read the whole story.]

Adorable Google Doodle Celebrates Water on Mars

Google/Google Doodle

Today’s google doodle celebrates the discovery of liquid water on the Martian surface. [Read the whole story.]

Astronaut Marks Mission Milestone with Amazing Image

NASA

On the halfway point of his year-long mission in space, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured an image of the United States early in the morning. [Read the whole story.]

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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.