A few pix

[Basil]

Just three pictures I've found I thought I'd share. All of these can be used as idea seeds/playing aids for various kinds of campaigns.

For Solar HERO: Aurorae on Mars (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/photogalleries/space-photos-week21/photo3.html)

For interstellar/FTL campaigns:
Another picture of an exoplanet (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/photogalleries/space-photos-week21/photo2.html)
An expanding red-giant star "swallowing" a Jovian planet. (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/photogalleries/space-photos-week21/index.html) {note: that's an "artist's conception" not an actual photo. We can't take photos of something like that. Yet.}

[tkdguy]

Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing these.

[Cancer]

Hmm. The legend on the last one is confusing: the image is a planet in the early stages of being engulfed, but Wolszczan's quote is about our own Solar System, and the Sun certainly will not engulf any of the Jovian planets in our Solar System. Mercury and Venus certainly; Earth is on the hairy edge (opinion changes about Earth every 5-10 years as improvements in knowledge of relevant pieces of physics are made; I think right now the last opinion was Yes).

It would be interesting, maybe even possible, to consider what happens to the star when the planet is engulfed. Nasty hydrodynamics questions...

[Jomster]

Now if that were a Martian Death Star, that could just possibly be some sort of afterglow from the last time it fired...