NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams checks out the Astrobee robotic free-flyer in the Kibo laboratory module outfitted with tentacle-like arms containing gecko-like adhesive pads to demonstrate satellite capture techniques. Development of this robotic technology may increase the life span of satellites and enable the removal of space debris.
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If you could stand on Mars — what might you see?
You might look out over a
vast orange landscape covered with rocks under a dusty orange sky,
with a blue-tinted
Sun setting over the horizon,
and odd-shaped water clouds hovering high overhead
Technicians carefully install a piece of equipment to house Gateway’s xenon fuel tanks, part of its advanced electric propulsion system.
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What color is the universe?
More precisely, if the
entire sky were smeared out,
what color would the final mix be?
This whimsical question
came up when trying to determine
what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies
“I love my country. I love serving my country. I think that was ingrained in me in the military, where I grew to realize how lucky we are to live in America and have the freedoms that we have. When I returned from [my first duty station] in Germany, I separated from the Air Force for about nine months, but I missed it so much, I was like, ‘Well, I guess I could join the reserves.” I did want to get my education. I was ready by then.
“So, I enrolled in school and went into the Reserves, and then 9/11 happened. That will change a person. I called my unit that afternoon and said, “Whatever you need, I’m ready.” I was activated supporting the mission, but I didn’t deploy like my husband. [9/11] is what touched my life more than anything: how quickly things can change in the blink of an eye. That’s what strengthened my respect of the Air Force core values: service before self and integrity, and excellence in all we do.
“Then, when I got pregnant, I thought I might want to be home, so I continued in civil service and just fell in love with my kids. That’s when my relationship with loving the Air Force changed. It evolved. I still value all that time I had and served and the lessons I learned growing up [in the Air Force]. The biggest thing I have and will continue to pass on to my kids is respect for your country, even if you don’t follow the route I did. Respect your country and the people who serve it.” – Tami Wisniewski, Management and Program Analyst, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
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Messier 4 can be found
west of bright red-giant star Antares,
alpha star of the constellation Scorpius
In this photograph astronaut and STS-113 mission specialist John B. Herrington, (center frame), participates in the mission’s third spacewalk. The forward section of the Space Shuttle Endeavour is in right frame.
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The large stellar association cataloged as
NGC 206 is
nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring
Andromeda galaxy
along with the galaxy’s pinkish star-forming regions
NASA astronaut Victor Glover (right) takes photos during a visit on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, with employees at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The employees support the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program to help NASA send astronauts, including Glover, to the Moon and back through the Artemis II launch.
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How different are these two streaks?
The streak on the upper right is
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas showing an
impressive dust tail
This robot prototype was built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to demonstrate the feasibility of a mission concept called SWIM, short for Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers. SWIM envisions a swarm of dozens of self-propelled, cellphone-size robots exploring the waters of icy moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus.
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One of the most identifiable nebulas in the sky,
the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, is part of a large, dark,
molecular cloud
What lies at the center of our galaxy?
In Jules Verne’s
science fiction classic,
A Journey
to the Center of the Earth, Professor Liedenbrock
and his fellow explorers encounter many strange and exciting wonders
In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013
Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds
of the Solar System,
innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn
A cyclone is a low-pressure area of winds that spiral inwards. Although tropical storms most often come to mind, these spiraling storms can also form at mid- and high latitudes. Two such cyclones formed in tandem south of Iceland in November 2006.
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Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas
suggest this nebula’s popular name,
The Medusa Nebula
This illustration depicts a hypothetical uneven ring of dust orbiting KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian’s Star or Tabby’s Star. Astronomers have found the dimming of the star over long periods appears to be weaker at longer infrared wavelengths of light and stronger at shorter ultraviolet wavelengths.
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Like an illustration in a galactic
Just So Story,
the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396,
in the high and far off constellation
of Cepheus
The STS-129 crew members posed for a portrait following a joint news conference on Nov. 24, 2009, with the Expedition 21 crew members (out of frame) on the International Space Station. Pictured (clockwise) from bottom left are astronauts Charles O. Hobaugh, commander; Mike Foreman, Leland Melvin, Robert L. Satcher Jr. and Randy Bresnik, all mission specialists; along with Barry E. Wilmore, pilot; and Nicole Stott, mission specialist.
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Eight billion people
are about to disappear in this
snapshot from space
taken on 2022 November 21
On Nov. 19, 1969, astronaut Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot for the Apollo 12 mission, begins to step off the ladder of the lunar module to join astronaut Charles Conrad Jr., mission commander, in a spacewalk. Conrad and Bean descended in the Apollo 12 lunar module to explore the moon while astronaut Richard F. Gordon Jr., command module pilot, remained with the command and service modules in lunar orbit.
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What’s happening with these clouds?
While it may seem that these
long and thin clouds
are pointing toward the top of a hill, and that maybe a
world-famous observatory is located there, only part of that is true
Participants from the 14th First Nations Launch High-Power Rocket Competition watch NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 launch from the Banana Creek viewing site at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023. Students and advisors from University of Washington, University of Colorado-Boulder, and an international team from Queens University – this year’s First Nations Launch grand prize teams – traveled to Kennedy for a VIP tour, culminating in viewing the Crew-7 launch.
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Stars can create huge and intricate
dust sculptures from the dense and dark
molecular clouds from which they are born
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Target: Star Mission: James Webb Space Telescope Instrument: Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Image Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScl/JPL-Caltech |
NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on the Artemis I flight test, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission was the first integrated flight test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems.
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Put on your
red/blue glasses
and gaze across the western
Ocean of Storms
on the surface of the Moon
The 363-feet tall Apollo 12 space vehicle launches from Pad A, Launch Complex 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:22 a.m. EST, Nov. 14, 1969. Aboard the Apollo 12 spacecraft were astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., commander; Richard F. Gordon Jr., command module pilot; and Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot. Apollo 12 was the United States’ second lunar landing mission.
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A great nebulous region
near bright star omicron Persei offers this study in cosmic contrasts
With the Caribbean Sea and part of the Bahama Islands chain as a backdrop, two STS-51 crewmembers, NASA astronauts James H. Newman (left), and Carl E. Walz, evaluated procedures and gear to be used on an Hubble Space Telescope (HST)-servicing mission.
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A mere
56 million light-years distant toward the
southern constellation Fornax,
NGC 1365 is an enormous
barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter
Five varieties of seeds provided by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma were pictured inside the cupola on Nov. 21, 2023, as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the Atlantic Ocean. The seeds were exposed to microgravity for several months then returned to Earth and planted next to the same seeds left on Earth for comparison. The space botany experiment is promoting STEM education among tribal members.
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How was the Crescent Nebula created?
Looking like an emerging space
cocoon, the Crescent Nebula,
visible in the center of the
featured image, was created by the brightest star in its center
What created an unusual dark streak in Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas’s tail?
Some images of the
bright comet during mid-October not only caught its
impressively long tail and its
thin anti-tail,
but a rather unexpected feature: a
dark
streak
in
the
long tail
Erosion, tectonic uplift, and a human-built dam have all helped shape the Upper Lake Powell area in Utah.
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Target: Eagle Nebula Mission: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Interior of the 20-foot diameter vacuum tank at the NASA Lewis Research Center’s Electric Propulsion Laboratory.
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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the spiral galaxy NGC 1672 with a supernova.
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This spectacular
intergalactic skyscape features Arp 227,
a curious system of galaxies from the 1966
Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
As the International Space Station soared 257 miles above northern Mexico, NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Don Pettit captured this long-exposure photograph of city lights streaking across Earth while a green atmospheric glow crowned the horizon.
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NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft sits in its run stall at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, firing up its engine for the first time. These engine-run tests start at low power and allow the X-59 team to verify the aircraft’s systems are working together while powered by its own engine. 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 by making sonic booms quieter.
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