NASA Pic Of The Day

31 Jan 2024 22:25

A successful liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heads to the International Space Station for the 20th Northrop Grumman resupply mission on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. The spacecraft is expected to reach the space station Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024, bringing 8,200 pounds of science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ksc-20240130-ph-spx02-0003orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

29 Jan 2024 21:24

The aerial prototype of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steve F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, in Chantilly, Va. The prototype, which was the first to demonstrate it was possible to fly in a simulated Mars environment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was donated to the museum on Friday. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53399676593-57707b89f8-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

24 Jan 2024 20:24

On the 20th anniversary of the landing of Spirit and Opportunity, celebrate NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project with this two-sided poster that lists some of the pioneering explorers’ accomplishments on the Red Planet. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/e1-mer-20th-poster-vert-front-1080x1920-1-eefb7b.png)

NASA Pic Of The Day

22 Jan 2024 23:25

A NASA intern uses an augmented reality headset to test out heads-up display technology being developed for future Artemis missions. This technology was created as part of the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or SUITS, design challenge in which college students from across the country help design user interface solutions for future spaceflight needs. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52945857760-666c5484fe-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

18 Jan 2024 21:24

This Hubble Picture of the Week features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/potw2402a-1.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

16 Jan 2024 21:25

NASA and Lockheed Martin publicly unveil the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a ceremony in Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/afrc2024-0004-001orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

11 Jan 2024 20:24

This deep dataset from Chandra of the remains of a supernova known as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B) reveals evidence for more than one supernova explosion in the history of this remnant. Unusual structures in the Chandra data cannot be explained by a single explosion. These images of 30 Dor B also show optical data from the Blanco telescope in Chile, and infrared data from Spitzer. Additional data from Hubble highlights sharp features in the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/30dorb.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

09 Jan 2024 22:24

For the first time, astronomers have combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope to study the well-known supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A). This work has helped explain an unusual structure in the debris from the destroyed star called the “Green Monster,” because of its resemblance to the wall in the left field of Fenway Park. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/casa-greenmonster-1.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

05 Jan 2024 21:24

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara has her Russian Sokol spacesuit pressure checked ahead launching to the International Space Station with fellow crewmates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53193285376-f2483c928f-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

02 Jan 2024 20:25

Jupiter, top, and Venus, bottom, are seen with the crescent Moon above the Vehicle Assembly Building, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as preparations continued for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission. The agency’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission was the sixth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52704988217-a8442a095c-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

28 Dec 2023 19:24

Creating an artistic reflection, a Great Blue Heron skims its wings on a waterway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 11, 2021. The center shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ksc-20210111-ph-jbs01-0072orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

22 Dec 2023 20:28

Four reindeer walk past the BARREL payload on the launch pad at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden. The BARREL team was at Esrange Space Center launching a series of six scientific payloads on miniature scientific balloons. The NASA-funded BARREL – which stands for Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses – primarily measured X-rays in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gsfc-20171208-archive-e000249orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

20 Dec 2023 20:27

At the start of October 2023, green conifers and golden aspen covered the slopes of Monroe Mountain in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Then, starting on October 9, these forests turned black as fire worked its way across the mountain. Flames and smoke were visible for miles. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/firesensefire-pho-2023282-lrg.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

15 Dec 2023 19:26

Orville Wright makes the first powered, controlled flight on Earth as his brother Wilbur looks on in this image taken at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903. Orville Wright covered 120 feet in 12 seconds during the first flight. The Wright brothers made four flights that day, each longer than the last. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/pia24434orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

13 Dec 2023 00:25

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) in near-infrared light is giving astronomers hints at the dynamical processes occurring within the supernova remnant. Tiny clumps represented in bright pink and orange make up the supernova’s inner shell, and are comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself. A large, striated blob at the bottom right corner of the image, nicknamed Baby Cas A, is one of the few light echoes visible NIRCam’s field of view. In this image, red, green, and blue were assigned to Webb’s NIRCam data at 4.4, 3.56, and 1.62 microns (F444W, F356W, and F162M, respectively). (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/53389652123-d38edbe3d7-o.png)

NASA Pic Of The Day

30 Jan 2024 21:24

This high exposure photograph revealed Earth's atmospheric glow against the backdrop of a starry sky in this image taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 21, 2024. At the time, the orbital lab was 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Papua New Guinea. The Nauka science module and Prichal docking module are visible at left. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/iss070e076676orig-iotd.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

26 Jan 2024 00:24

From left to right, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, and Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel Eliav Benjamin, place wreaths at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial during a ceremony that was part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53487781115-4a1a9848fa-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

23 Jan 2024 22:24

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft for Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station lifts off at 4:49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Ax-3 is the third all private astronaut mission to the space station, sending crew members Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravci into orbit. The crew will spend about two weeks conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities aboard the space station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ksc-20240118-ph-cms01-0025orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

19 Jan 2024 21:25

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. Erika Blumenfeld, creative lead for the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) and Joe Aebersold, project management lead, captured this picture using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about .4 in (one cm) in size. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/orex-high-res.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

17 Jan 2024 22:24

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, over western Canada on November 5, 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/nameraurora-vir-2023309-lrg.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

12 Jan 2024 18:24

The Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9 captured this image of Simsbury on September 15, 2022. The tobacco farm where Martin Luther King worked—Meadowood—is located west of the Farmington River, a tributary of the Connecticut River. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/simsbury-oli2-2022258-lrg.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

10 Jan 2024 22:24

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Thursday, January 9, 2014, Wallops Island, VA. Antares is carrying the Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Cygnus is carrying science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware to the space station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/11861725206-3c032d701d-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

09 Jan 2024 01:24

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features a richness of spiral galaxies: the large, prominent spiral galaxy on the right side of the image is NGC 1356; the two apparently smaller spiral galaxies flanking it are LEDA 467699 (above it) and LEDA 95415 (very close at its left) respectively; and finally, IC 1947 sits along the left side of the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/potw2352a.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

03 Jan 2024 20:24

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Robert Hines participate in STEM demonstrations with local students at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Washington. Lindgren, Hines, and Watkins spent 170 days in space as part of Expeditions 67 and 68 aboard the International Space Station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52782508755-c3a998cde9-o.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

29 Dec 2023 19:24

Resembling sparks from a fireworks display, this image taken by a JPL camera onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows delicate filaments that are sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/pia04609orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

26 Dec 2023 20:25

Seen here by Webb, ice giant Uranus is a dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, extreme seasons, and more. Webb’s sensitivity has even captured the close-in Zeta ring, faint, diffuse, and elusive.

These new images reveal detailed features of Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, as well as bright storms near and below the southern border of the cap. If humans want to send a spacecraft to visit Uranus up close, it’s necessary to understand how to navigate debris from its rings. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/53404881117-64e0071ca0-o.png)

NASA Pic Of The Day

21 Dec 2023 22:25

Artemis II crew members: CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, left, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman, right, pose for a group photograph after their meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. During their mission, the Artemis II crew will travel aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft on a 10-day mission around the Moon, testing spacecraft systems for the first time with astronauts for long-term exploration and scientific discovery. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/nhq202312140006orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

19 Dec 2023 19:26

This composite image shows the Christmas Tree Cluster. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ngc2264.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

13 Dec 2023 20:26

Artemis II crew members, shown inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stand in front of their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. From left are: Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; Victor Glover, pilot; Reid Wiseman, commander; and Christina Hammock Koch, mission specialist. The crew module is undergoing acoustic testing ahead of integration with the European Service Module. Artemis II is the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term lunar presence for science and exploration under Artemis. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ksc-20230808-ph-kls02-0098orig.jpg)

NASA Pic Of The Day

11 Dec 2023 21:26

Astronaut Kathryn C. Thornton works with equipment associated with servicing chores on the Hubble Space Telescope during the fourth spacewalk on the eleven-day mission. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sts061-098-0korig.jpg)