This truly spectacular image (click for full size) shows us the silhouette of STS-125 Space Shuttle Atlantis against the Sun. Taken for NASA by Thierry Legault on Tuesday, it captures Atlantis en route to its rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST-SM4). Hubble is currently in the shuttle’s cargo bay, where the crew yesterday installed the Wide Field Camera 3 (successor to the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2). On saturday, they will also install the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and repair the Advanced Camera for Surveys. They are also making several other repairs, in what will be the final Hubble servicing mission before its orbit is terminated, probably around 2014. Atlantis is just under 40 metres long, and 350 miles high in this picture!

Anyway, I thought some of you might enjoy this beautiful image too.