Orange County Register

A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Image courtesy of NASA.

Here’s a sample of some eye-catching satellite, radar and telescope images recently taken by NASA, and a couple by astronomers-photographers on the ground. Captions are listed beneath the photo gallery and include captions by the space agency and spaceweather.com. CLICK IMAGES to enlarge.

First row (left to right): A dust storm blew along the Iranian coast over the Gulf of Oman on June 17, 2009;  Computer-generated image of the moon’s south polar region. Image produced by Goldstone radar dish in the Mojave Desert and a solar wind stream flowing from this far-northern coronal hole will probably miss Earth or at most deliver a glancing blow on or about June 25. Credit: SOHO

Second row (left to right): Stonehenge with a backdrop of brilliant noctilucent clouds on the night of June 17-18. Photo by Grant Privett, and distributed by spaceweather.com; Spring plankton bloom in Pacific near Hokkaido, Japan; Antarctica’s Luitpold Coast, stained, in part, by poop from Emperor penguins.

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Gallery: Astronauts photograph O.C. from space station

Airborne radar to monitor O.C. earthquake threats

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