Seattle and environs as seen during a brief sun break this morning from the International Space Station, in a sweeping view that takes in Puget Sound at the top, Lake Washington mid-image, and Lake Sammamish near the bottom (image credit: CSA/Commander Chris Hadfield).

The new Seattle Great Wheel, along the city’s waterfront at Pier 57, as seen through a mirrored sculptural installation at adjacent Waterfront Park.

NASA’s Super Guppy cargo aircraft, adapted from a Boeing 377 fuselage, on its way to deliver the nose section of NASA’s Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer to its new home at Seattle’s Museum of Flight on Saturday (image credit: Joshua Trujillo, seattlepi.com).

Fern Palm (Cycas cicinalis) at Volunteer Park Conservatory in Seattle. Cycads show up in the fossil record all the way back to the Permian era, 280 million years ago, and the plants were among the first colonizers of land on our planet. These living fossils have changed little since the Jurassic era, when they were the dominant food of dinosaurs.

Seattle is showing off again today, across the lake.

Early Morning Seattle: hauntingly beautiful aerial shot of the Seattle area at sunrise (image credit: Thatcher Kelley).

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for working.