Space

With an array of 62 CCD sensors, grabbing 570 megapixel chunks of the sky, the Dark Energy Camera is the most powerful digital camera currently in existence. It was recently activated as part of the Dark Energy Survey in Chile, and the first images have now been released into the public eye.

On paper, the hardware on the Mars Rover Curiosity sounds kind of underwhelming to a gear head — just 2-megapixels and only 8GB of onboard storage? That's worse than an aging smartphone. As piddling as that may seem, NASA had a reason for picking that setup, and it's one that makes sense both for when the project was assembled, and what it was designed for.

Next time you're feeling lazy about going out to take photos, take a peek at this image. It's black-and-white, heavily distorted by a fisheye, and so overexposed that the sensor got a little wacky near the top. But, it cam all the way from Mars.

Photographer Knate Myers has put together an absolutely stunning time-lapse video of the Earth as seen from the ISS, and it's the perfect way to start your work week. Myers edited some of the shots and reduced the image noise, but the source photos all come from NASA directly.