Rosetta

I take no credit for the image (I'm probably not even supposed to be posting it - if anyone has an issue with it I will take it down). I just thought it made a nice wallpaper and that some of you might agree. All I've done is expand the black on either side to make it desktop shaped and shrink it to fit my monitor's native resolution.

The image is courtesy of the European Space Agency. The image is available in it's original resolution of 1355x1315 at [link] In their words:

"Image of the Earth acquired with the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera from a distance of 633 000 km on 12 November 2009 at 13:28 CET.

The resolution is 12 km/pixel.

The image is a part of a sequence of images taken every hour through one full rotation (24 hours). The movie will be published later.

Three images with an orange, green, and blue filter were combined to create this one. The illuminated crescent is centered roughly around the South Pole (South at the bottom of the image). The outline of Antarctica is visible under the clouds that form the striking south-polar vortex. Pack ice in front of the coastline with its strong spectacular reflection is the cause for the very bright spots on the image."