Credit: H. Hammel, MIT and NASA/ESA

Found this while mistakenly looking for Wednesday’s Spitzer image at the Hubble site (sorry, Spitzer.) The Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact sites on Jupiter are long gone, but the fabulous images remain!

This true colour image of the giant planet Jupiter, by NASA and ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the impact sites of fragments ‘D’ and ‘G’ from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

I have a beautiful little star ornament by Swarovski, and when I went searching to see if they’d done anything similar, I came across this lovely little comet! Seems to be out of production — at least, it’s not in the Swarovski online store — but you can get it at Crystal Classics, or by doing a little searching online.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

I have a soft spot for conceptual space art — trying to capture what this probe or that lander will see, when it gets there. Since we can’t tag along with every robotic explorer, it’s up to the artist to imagine what we’d see. What a wonderful occupation! In this case, we’re shadowing the Stardust probe:

On Jan. 2, 2004 NASA’s Stardust spacecraft made a close flyby of comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt-2″). Among the equipment the spacecraft carried on board was a navigation camera.that Comet Wild 2 is about 3.1 miles in diameter.

This artist’s concept depicts a view of Wild 2 that shows the faint jets emanating from the comet.

Photo credit: Michael Jaeger

Found this beautiful photo of Comet McNaught via io9 — hats off to the talented photographer, Michael Jaeger!

This glimmering apparition is Comet McNaught, which is visiting the inner solar system and may become visible with the naked eye by the end of the month. This is the first visit to the solar system by the million-kilometer comet.

“I Only Surf on Comets” by Peter Kramar

Posting two cool tees I saw recently on Threadless (via @moonrangerlaura.)

“The Milky Way” by Budi Satria Kwan

Final assortment of space-themed camembert labels for your amusement. (A comet made of double cream, and a rocket named Sputnik. Funnily enough, I will be attending an artisan cheese festival this weekend, not specifically because of this post series. I doubt I’ll find space-themed cheese labels, but if I do I’ll be sure to take a picture and let you know.)

This delightful Art Nouveau magazine illustration hails from a 1915 edition of Puck Magazine. Sadly this is the only place online I can find the illustration (watermarked, as it is) and I know nothing of the artist, but it’s a fun piece and very in keeping with the aesthetic of the time.

Today’s stamps feature the 1986 appearance of Halley’s Comet (and Edmund Halley himself.) Tonga and Mongolia both give philatelic tribute to a great comet!