Island Among Stars
Like a page torn from The Little Prince, the French island of Réunion becomes a small planet amid a starry sky in a composite picture taken last week by astrophotographer Luc Perrot.
The picture is what's called a stereographic projection, a form of digital processing that shows a 360-degree spherical panorama as a flat image. This view stitches together several long-exposure shots of the night sky—including the arc of the Milky Way—as seen from the tiny volcanic island, east of Madagascar.
Space Pictures This Week: "Runaway" Star, Shuttle Flyby
A French island becomes a world awash in stars, Discovery streaks over Earth for the last time, and more in the week's best space pictures.