To make up for last week’s potentially-Mac-only icon post, here is To the Moon by Iconfactory (makers of truly awesome things), and is definitely available in both Mac and PC flavors. This set has excellent detail, and no matter what re-theming I may do to my desktop, there’s always a To the Moon icon that remains. I can’t help it. (Right now it’s the re-entry icon. Such lovely transparency….)

I haven’t posted any computer-y delights in a while, so feast your eyes on these up-to-128px desktop icons! The set is called “Astral Bodies” and I can’t find a link for it (the creator, Sean Liew, doesn’t seem to do this sort of thing anymore), so here, have yourself a ZIP file (1.17 Mb.) They are for Mac (I’m using 10.4); no idea if they will work for Windows. Edit: Here is a Windows .ICO version, courtesy of John @ Terrazoom. Thanks!

Age of Discovery, by Josef Barton

Had to post more space art, because this one is a wallpaper, and aren’t you just falling over yourself, running to download it? Because I know I was! Beautiful, Hubble-like softness — I love it.

Abduzeedo Wallpaper of the Week #80 - James White

A really awesome wallpaper/desktop pic, full of color and light, courtesy of Abduzeedo. Also comes in an iPhone version.

If I post on a Saturday, it’s because I have something fun to share. Today, it’s my winning entry for Veer’s Contest #24: Newsworthy, which started last Friday (LCROSS Impact Day, or perhaps we should call it No Visible Plume Day?) Annoyed by the “NASA is wasting our tax dollars to blow up the Moon!” comments online, as soon as Veer announced this contest, I already had the headline in mind (it was just a matter of finding as cratery a font as possible. If anyone ever comes across a genuinely cratered font, please let me know! This was as close as I could get on short notice.)

Images by Mike Horn (hornage)

I love Star Wars, so naturally this Flickr set of poster and wallpaper-quality pictures thrilled me to bits. (Not that I want the Imperial forces to invade San Francisco, of course… but the imagery is pretty darn awesome, I have to admit.) Get the whole set here!

The Iconfactory has long been one of my favorite haunts, and yet again they’ve delivered, with official desktop wallpapers and icons from the new Star Trek movie. I mean… really, who wouldn’t want these on their desktop??

Cosmic Diary is part of the International Year of Astronomy; astronomers from all over the globe are talking about their jobs, their thoughts, and trying to share the day-to-day life of astronomy, as well as the science. I read a lovely article there yesterday on astronomy and journalism by Brother Guy Consolmagno, the American-born curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory. Definitely give the site a read; there’s astronomers aplenty reaching out to the public!

The New York Times has a flash-based guide to the Soyuz spacecraft — think DK Eyewitness Guide, but animated. Very cool, worth paging through!

Today’s Picture of the Day @ NASA is the Peony Nebula, and this dreamily-colored image is downloadable in standard desktop/wallpaper sizes.

If our galaxy were to host its own version of the Olympics, the title for the brightest known star would go to a massive star called Eta Carina. However, a new runner-up, now the second-brightest star in our galaxy, has been discovered in the galaxy’s dusty and frenzied interior. This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the new silver medalist, circled in the inset above, in the central region of our Milky Way.

Dubbed the Peony nebula star, this blazing ball of gas shines with the equivalent light of 3.2 million suns. The reigning champ, Eta Carina, produces the equivalent of 4.7 million suns worth of light. However, astronomers say these estimates are uncertain, and it’s possible that the Peony nebula star could be even brighter than Eta Carina.

If the Peony star is so bright, why doesn’t it stand out more in this view? The answer is dust. This star is located in a very dusty region jam packed with stars. In fact, there could be other super bright stars still hidden deep in the stellar crowd. Spitzer’s infrared eyes allowed it to pierce the dust and assess the Peony nebula star’s true brightness. Likewise, infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope in Chile were integral in calculating the Peony nebula star’s luminosity.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ.