Top 10 Astronomy Pix of 2006

Even as a dyed-in-the-wool political junkie, I can get weary of the unending stream of horror from that arena. How long can you listen to people talking about Iraq, elections, surges, torture (and it's torture to hear about torture), and the wingnuts before going a little wingnutty yourself?

Of course, the other unending stream of horror flowing past us right now is the seemingly infinite supply of year-end Top Ten lists. OK, sure, I'll admit that was a little bit of a ham-fisted segue, but what do you want? I'm burned out from all the politics and Top Ten lists!

Well, not completely burned out. I decided that what I wasn't seeing in those lists was a compilation of the most beautiful, interesting, and just flat-out cool astronomy pictures of the year. And what better way to relax than to look through thousands of gorgeous images of astronomical objects?

So I did. And in another particularly ham-fisted segue, I'll say that after many hours of viewing, pruning, and editing, I have put together my own personal Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006. Some of these images you may have seen, but I bet a few are ones you haven't. If you read Huffington Post and remember back a few months, you might just recall a picture I talked about that became my Number One Pick:

Saturn.

This image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, is actually a mosaic of several images and it shows something we can't see from Earth: Saturn, back-lit by the Sun. I love this image. It's got it all: beauty, scope, power, artistry, and it also happens to have some good scientific value as well.

But besides the spectacular image itself, it has another surprise. If you look to the upper left of Saturn, you'll see a little dot of light:

That dot, apparently nestled in Saturn's rings, is Earth. It's us. Somewhere in that dot is me, and you, and Arianna, and everyone else. Was someone on that dot looking at Saturn the moment this image was taken? I bet there was-- Saturn was at its best viewing at that time, so I suspect there were thousands of amateur astronomers peering this way at the very least. But there may have also been countless other humans craning their necks up to look at the bright star in the sky, not even aware that at that same time, a billion miles away, an extension of the human brain was looking back at them.

That's why that image is my favorite of 2006. But there were nine others too, all of which remind us of the beauty and timelessness of the cosmos. That's something you might want to hold dear when you feel like you're overloaded with the pettiness of earthly problems... or when you've simply had enough of Top Ten lists.