A few days ago we had the rare transit of Venus across the sun (as seen from Earth, of course). This image, captured by the Hinode spacecraft, a joint Japanese/U.S./U.K. mission. It is in orbit around the Earth, so it saw the transit of Venus just as us surface-dwellers did.
This image shows Venus just as it crossed one edge of the sun. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can clearly see a bright ring all the way around Venus – sunlight refracting through Venus' carbon dioxide rich atmosphere.
Photo from APOD, of course...
That now qualifies as the brightest wallpaper I've ever had on my desktop. May need sunglasses to find the icons now. :)
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