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...
