Dr. Phil Plait selects his favorite space pictures every year, but this year he had a lot to sift through. The top 16 pictures taken from the viewpoint of space include volcanoes, hurricanes, earth formations, the moon, eclipses, and spacecraft, including the final space shuttle missions. Astronaut Ron Garan took this photograph of the moon from the International Space Station. See the rest at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link

Michael König edited a sequence of photographs taken from the International Space Station (ISS) between August and October into a time-lapse video of an orbit over the earth. The altitude is approximately 350 kilometers. The music is “Do Dekor” by Jan Jelinek. -Thanks özi!

The International Space Station (ISS) occasionally has to boost itself into a higher altitude to counteract the effects of microgravity drag. Recently, the ISS boosted itself about two miles up, and video cameras caught what happened inside to Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov. The physics of the process are explained at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -Thanks, Phil!

This photograph of a meteor burning up in our atmosphere was taken by astronaut Ron Garan from the International Space Station. Dr. Phil Plait brings us the picture and a little math to explain how many more meteors you could see from the ISS than from the planet’s surface, which leads to the question of meteors hitting the ISS. What are the odds? Find out at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link

The space shuttle Atlantis ended its final mission today when it landed in Florida just before 6AM ET. This photograph, showing the shuttle’s final descent path, was taken this morning by the Expedition 28 crew of the International Space Station. See a much larger and more impressive photo at NASA’s website. Link -Thanks, Ned!

Last week we met Cady Coleman, who is both a musician and an astronaut. Here she is performing the first ever space-earth musical duet with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Coleman is aboard the International Space Station, while Anderson is somewhere on earth. -Thanks, özi!

Have you ever wondered what astronauts do in their free time? Cady Coleman {wiki} is a scientist, flautist, and an astronaut, currently aboard the International Space Station. In this video, she gives us the short version of what it’s like to play music in space. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault (featured previously at Neatorama) went all the way to Oman to take a picture of a solar eclipse. The shot he wanted was only available for a split second today, and he got it! Not only is the moon moving across the sun, but you can see other things in the picture (see the full-size version at the link). The small spot towards the bottom is a sunspot twice the size of the earth, and toward the top is something that looks like a TIE fighter. That is the International Space Station (ISS)! The Bad Astronomer explains how rare this picture is:

That’s why Thierry sojourned to Oman; due to the geometry of the ISS orbit, it was from there that he had the best chance of getting a picture of the station as it passed in front of the Sun during the relatively brief duration of the actual solar eclipse. But talk about brief; the ISS was in front of the Sun for less than second, so not only did he have one chance at getting this spectacular once-in-a-lifetime shot, but he had only a fraction of a second to snap it!

The ISS was only in front of the sun for .86 seconds during the eclipse. Link

(Image courtesy of Thierry Legault)

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Cady Coleman along with Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency send a holiday message from the International Space Station (ISS). -via Metafilter

The user-generated website There, I Fixed It often showcases how people use duct tape to fix anything. An engineer at NASA submitted photos of how duct tape is put to work on the International Space Station! See more pictures and the explanation at the site. Link

In the 50s and 60s, scientists were already thinking about what a space station in Earth orbit might need, what it might look like. Surprisingly, many of the concepts were not that far off from reality, including a design concept that was made back in 1869. This was an Earth-based research/fantasy concept called "BRICK MOON" which was designed to be a self-contained habitat that featured many of the same requirements of a space station. Pictured is MOL, just one of nine space station concepts in this article.

This is a concept depiction of a orbiting space station that the USAF (United States Air Force) was considering in the 1960s. The intent was that a two-person crew would spend a month aboard the station before being rotated out and brought back to Earth. The orbiting station was to be called “MOL”, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.was on the mind of men decades ago, with some surprising similarities to today’s space platforms these visionaries seemed to predict the future. A future that they could not an have possibly understood or fathomed. Ultimately, we will need a new fleet of space shuttles to get there.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by thestickman.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte told reporters he plans to tickle the professional astronauts while they’re sleeping, and he’s also bringing red clown noses to try to lighten things up on the orbiting station.

“I’m a person with a pretty high spirit, who’s there to crack jokes and make jokes to those guys, and while they’re sleeping, you know, I’ll be tickling them,” Laliberte said.

Laliberte will also use his trip to raise awareness of world drinking water issues. Link -via Dave Barry’s Blog

Koichi Wakata, a Japanese Astronaut who is working aboard the International Space Station was given the task to perform a few silly experiments in Zero-G requested by the Earth People of Japan. They consist of the mundane such as performing push-ups, squirting water from a tube, backflips and so forth but then some of them are bizarre like the “flying magic carpet” request! Oh, how I wish I were in space like Koichi and the other fine men and women of the ISS crew! I would see to it if I could perform the moonwalk in Zero-G!

The 16 space experiments in a nifty list – Link (also from Pink Tentacle)

Via – Pink Tentacle

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	The View From the Intl Space Station Window This short but fantastic video clip is of the view from the Space Shuttle Endeavour's left window looking at the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) of the International Space Shuttle. Link
	Ying-Yang Twins on Cribs - Translated Does anyone understand what rappers Kaine and D-Roc of the Ying-Yang Twins (shouldn't that be Yin Yang?) are talking about. So thankfully, the guys over at Tasty Booze blog stepped in to translate. While you laugh at their expense, keep this in mind: they probably make more in a week than we all do in a year. Sad, ain't it? Link While watching this, I had an epiphany about MTV Cribs - the jerky camera work is to distract you from how bad the show actually is! Either that or this is how the younger generation actually see the world, and if so God saves us all. If you liked that, then you'll love this: Freestyle Rap Battle Translated into Plain English
	Men in Black Bloopers I know that it's been a while since MIB hit the silver screen - but this blooper outtakes are just as funny as the film itself. What a neat blast from the past: Link
	A Ventriloquist and Her Monkey This one is NSFW (strong language), but it's very funny: here's British actress and comedian Nina Conti performing ventriloquism with her sarcastic and profane puppet monkey Monk. Link (Interestingly, YouTube removed a video "due to terms of use violation" from her own website - what's up with that?)
	Iron Man vs Bruce Lee Who will win? Iron man or the Little Dragon? Regardless of who wins, one thing is for sure: French Canadian filmmaker Patrick Boivin, the man behind this short clip, sure knows how to make an excellent stop motion animation! Link

For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.