NASA Pic Of The Day

08 Dec 2023 19:28

This striking image shows the densely packed globular cluster known as NGC 2210, which is situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC lies about 157 000 light-years from Earth, and is a so-called satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, meaning that the two galaxies are gravitationally bound. Globular clusters are very stable, tightly bound clusters of thousands or even millions of stars. Their stability means that they can last a long time, and therefore globular clusters are often studied in order to investigate potentially very old stellar populations. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/cluster-in-the-cloud.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

06 Dec 2023 23:26

The mated Russian-built Zarya (left) and U.S.-built Unity modules are backdropped against the blackness of space and Earth's horizon shortly after leaving Endeavour's cargo bay. The photo was taken with an electronic still camera at 21:20:21 GMT, Dec. 13. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/s88e5157orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

04 Dec 2023 20:27

If spacecraft are to visit the outer solar system, they must cross the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Pioneer mission was faced with the question of just how dangerous this asteroid belt would be to a spacecraft passing through it. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/arc-1974-ac73-9344orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

29 Nov 2023 19:26

The sun's first rays begin illuminating Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the central United States. At far left, the city lights of Chicago, Illinois, are outlined by Lake Michigan. At far right, the city lights of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area shine through the clouds. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53332473614-7e5c400698-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

27 Nov 2023 21:25

The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the space station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss053e023965orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

22 Nov 2023 18:26

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Rick Mastracchio, both Expedition 38 flight engineers, pose for a photo with a Thanksgiving meal in the Unity node of the International Space Station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss038e009306orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

20 Nov 2023 20:27

The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s reveals a portion of the Milky Way’s dense core in a new light. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. A large region of ionized hydrogen, shown in cyan, contains intriguing needle-like structures that lack any uniform orientation. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/stsci-01hf7p3b6pw5ds5n9m9xd1ey27.png)

NASA Pic Of The Day

16 Nov 2023 21:26

NASA’s Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft lifts off the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/52508519778-6fda3b2c74-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

14 Nov 2023 21:26

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility C-130 aircraft delivered the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Oct. 28, 2023. The GUSTO mission will launch on a scientific balloon in December 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53296469002-a92ea42cb9-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

09 Nov 2023 19:25

A sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, Nov. 8, 2023, carrying the DISSIPATION mission. The rocket launched into aurora and successfully captured data to understand how auroras heat the atmosphere and cause high-altitude winds. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/wff-2023-080-157.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

07 Nov 2023 20:25

The spiral galaxy IC 342, located about 11 million light-years from Earth, lies behind the crowded plane of the Milky Way: Dust, gas, and stars obscure it from our view. Euclid used its near-infrared instrument to peer through the dust and study it. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/euclid-s-view-of-spiral-galaxy-ic-342.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

03 Nov 2023 19:25

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ultraviolet view of Jupiter. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/hubble-jupiter-jul22-3-flat-final.webp)

NASA Pic Of The Day

01 Nov 2023 18:26

This nighttime view from the International Space Station shows the city lights of the northeastern United States and major urban areas including Long Island, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. The orbital lab was soaring 262 miles above the Pine Tree State of Maine at the time of this photograph. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss070e013946orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

30 Oct 2023 18:26

This image, taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station, shows the reddish-brown waters of the Betsiboka River Delta in Madagascar. The color is caused by the transport of iron-rich sediment. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/iss070e000959-lrg.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

25 Sep 2023 19:24

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/53210646183_c08c1305c8_o.jpg

NASA Pic Of The Day

07 Dec 2023 19:25

Artemis II NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (left) and Christina Koch (middle) of NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen (second from left) view the core stage for the Space Launch System rocket at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on Nov. 16. The three astronauts, along with NASA’s Victor Glover, will launch atop the rocket stage to venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed flight for Artemis. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/maf-20231116-cs2-astronautvisit02orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

05 Dec 2023 21:26

The Moon, left, Saturn, upper right, and Jupiter, lower right, are seen after sunset from Washington, DC, Thurs. Dec. 17, 2020. The two planets drew closer to each other in the sky as they headed towards a “great conjunction” on Dec. 21, where the two giant planets appeared a tenth of a degree apart. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/nhq202012170001orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

30 Nov 2023 18:25

A cluster brimming with millions of stars glistens like an iridescent opal in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Called Omega Centauri, the sparkling orb of stars is like a miniature galaxy. It is the biggest and brightest of the 150 or so similar objects, called globular clusters, that orbit around the outside of our Milky Way galaxy. Stargazers at southern latitudes can spot the stellar gem with the naked eye in the constellation Centaurus. Globular clusters are some of the oldest objects in our universe. Their stars are over 12 billion years old, and, in most cases, formed all at once when the universe was just a toddler. Omega Centauri is unusual in that its stars are of different ages and possess varying levels of metals, or elements heavier than boron. Astronomers say this points to a different origin for Omega Centauri than other globular clusters: they think it might be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was ripped apart and absorbed by our Milky Way long ago. In this new view of Omega Centauri, Spitzer's infrared observations have been combined with visible-light data from the National Science Foundation's Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Visible-light data with a wavelength of .55 microns is colored blue, 3.6-micron infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera is colored green and 24-micron infrared light taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer is colored red. Where green and red overlap, the color yellow appears. Thus, the yellow and red dots are stars revealed by Spitzer. These stars, called red giants, are more evolved, larger and dustier. The stars that appear blue were spotted in both visible and 3.6-micron-, or near-, infrared light. They are less evolved, like our own sun. Some of the red spots in the picture are distant galaxies beyond our own. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/spiders.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

28 Nov 2023 21:26

A model of the Mariner-C spacecraft at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center for a June 1964 Conference on New Technology. Mariner-C and Mariner-D were identical spacecraft designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to flyby Mars and photograph the Martian surface. Mariner-C was launched on November 4, 1964, but the payload shroud did not jettison properly and the spacecraft’s battery power did not function. The mission ended unsuccessfully two days later. Mariner-D was launched as designed on November 28, 1964 and became the first successful mission to Mars. It was the first time a planet was photographed from space. Mariner-D’s 21 photographs revealed an inhospitable and barren landscape. The two Mariner spacecraft were launched by Atlas-Agena-D rockets. Lewis had taken over management of the Agena Program in October 1962. There had been five failures and two partial failures in the 17 Agena launches before being taken over by NASA Lewis. Lewis, however, oversaw 28 successful Agena missions between 1962 and 1968, including several Rangers and the Mariner Venus '67. (https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/GRC-1964-C-70182/GRC-1964-C-70182~orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

24 Nov 2023 22:25

A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration from Dec. 20, 2022. A long stream of hot gas on the right, coming from a star that was pulled apart by the black hole, feeds into the disk. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pia25440-orig-iotd.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

21 Nov 2023 19:25

NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 flight engineer Nicole Mann is pictured during a fit check of her spacesuit ahead of a planned spacewalk to upgrade the International Space Station's power generation system. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss068e040060orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

17 Nov 2023 21:27

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., attired in his Mercury pressure suit, poses for a photo on May 5, 1961, prior to his launch in a Mercury-Redstone 3 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a suborbital mission – the first U.S. manned spaceflight. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/s63-02082orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

15 Nov 2023 22:27

A 35mm camera, operated by astronaut William R. Pogue, Skylab 4 pilot, recorded this wide scene of his Skylab 4 crewmates on the other end of the orbital workshop. Astronauts Jerry P. Carr (right), commander, and Edward G. Gibson, science pilot, pose for the snapshot. Also in the frame are parts of three Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits, used on several EVA sessions during the third manning of the Skylab space station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/sl4-150-5062orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

13 Nov 2023 21:27

In this photo from Nov. 9, 2023, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket illuminates the water as it launches at night from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 29th commercial resupply mission of the Cargo Dragon spacecraft brought new scientific research, technology demonstrations, crew supplies, and hardware to the International Space Station, including NASA’s Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) and Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE). (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ksc-20231109-ph-kls01-0024-orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

08 Nov 2023 21:26

Casey Denham, aerospace engineer with the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, works with tribal students during a STEM activity at the American Indian Engineering Sciences (AISES) National Conference in Spokane, Washington, Oct. 19-21, 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/casey-denham.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

06 Nov 2023 21:24

The NASA Worm Logo sign is unveiled before the ribbon cutting ceremony to open NASA’s Earth Information Center, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at NASA Headquarters building in Washington. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/nhq202306210039orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

02 Nov 2023 18:27

6,500 light-years away lies the Crab Nebula, the remains of an exploded star. While this target has been well-studied by multiple observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s infrared sensitivity and resolution offer new clues into the makeup and origins of this scene. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53297865145-e3db450a1b-o.png)

NASA Pic Of The Day

31 Oct 2023 18:26

On Sept. 7, 2023, during its 54th close flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno mission captured this view of an area in the giant planet’s far northern regions called Jet N7. The image shows turbulent clouds and storms along Jupiter’s terminator, the dividing line between the day and night sides of the planet. The low angle of sunlight highlights the complex topography of features in this region, which scientists have studied to better understand the processes playing out in Jupiter’s atmosphere. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/just-in-time-for-halloween-nasas-juno-mission-spots-eerie-face-on-jupiter.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

26 Sep 2023 19:27

A turtle moves through a waterway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 4, 2017. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/ksc-20170504-ph_sww01_0057orig.jpg

NASA Pic Of The Day

22 Sep 2023 19:28

Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli captured this image of New Zealand, dotted by white clouds, on Sept. 12, 2023, as the International Space Station orbited 230 miles above the island nation. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss069-e-86875.jpg