A NASA spacesuit glove designed for use during spacewalks on the International Space Station is prepared for thermal vacuum testing inside a one-of-a-kind chamber called CITADEL (Cryogenic Ice Testing, Acquisition Development, and Excavation Laboratory) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Nov. 1, 2023.
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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular cluster Messier 72 (M72).
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Beautiful emission nebula NGC 6164
was created by a rare, hot, luminous
O-type
star, some 40 times as massive as the Sun
The sun’s glint beams off a partly cloudy Atlantic Ocean just after sunrise as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above on March 5, 2025.
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The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI). This is one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This image was taken at 1:51 p.m. EDT (17:51 UTC), April 20, 2025, near closest approach, from a range of approximately 660 miles (1,100 km). The spacecraft’s closest approach distance was 600 miles (960 km), but the image shown was taken approximately 40 seconds beforehand. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast.
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region.
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In digital
brush strokes, Jupiter’s
signature atmospheric bands and vortices were used to
form this interplanetary
post-impressionist
work of art
In late March, the comet now designated
C/2025 F2 SWAN was
found independently by
citizen scientists
Vladimir Bezugly, Michael Mattiazzo, and Rob Matson
while examining publicly available image data
from the Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) camera on
the sun-staring
SOHO spacecraft
This towering structure of billowing gas and dark, obscuring dust might only be a small portion of the Eagle Nebula, but it is no less majestic in appearance for it. 9.5 light-years tall and 7000 light-years distant from Earth, this dusty sculpture is refreshed with the use of new processing techniques.
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Galaxies of the Virgo Cluster
are scattered across this nearly 4 degree wide
telescopic field of view
The space shuttle Discovery launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, heading through Atlantic skies toward its 51-D mission. The seven-member crew lifted off at 8:59 a.m. ET, April 12, 1985.
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A scrub jay perches on a branch near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2020.
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What happens when a star runs out of
nuclear fuel?
For stars like
our Sun, the center condenses into a
white dwarf
while the outer atmosphere is expelled into space to appear as a
planetary nebula
On March 18, 2025, NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF), which simulates the harsh conditions of space.
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What’s happening at the center of our galaxy?
It’s hard to tell with optical telescopes since
visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust
This new image showcases the dazzling young star cluster NGC 346. Although both the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope have released images of NGC 346 previously, this image includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.
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Target: Mars Mission: Mars 2020 Rover Instrument: Hazard Avoidance Camera (M2020) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
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Target: Mars Mission: Mars 2020 Rover Instrument: Mastcam-Z Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS |
What created this unusual hole in Mars?
Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this
Swiss cheese-like landscape,
with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian terrain beneath
evaporating, light, carbon dioxide ice
In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart).
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From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure
with a camera and small telescope produced
this cosmic photo
of the M81 galaxy group
NASA astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert launch aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970.
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A Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 73 crew members aboard, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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What’s at the tip of this interstellar jet?
First let’s consider the jet: it is being expelled by a
star system just forming and is cataloged as
Herbig-Haro 49 (HH 49)
This March 4, 2020, image shows Deep Space Station 43, a 70-meter-wide (230-feet-wide) radio antenna at NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. The facility celebrated its 60th anniversary on March 19, 2025, while also breaking ground on a new radio antenna. The pair of achievements are major milestones for the network, which communicates with spacecraft all over the solar system using giant dish antennas located at three complexes around the globe.
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How much mass do flocculent spirals hide?
The featured image of
flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the
Hubble Space Telescope
to help answer this question
From the mountains of Turin to the deserts of Arizona, a core element of Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station, is now one step closer to the Moon.
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Why are there so many moonquakes?
Analyses of
seismometers
left on the moon during the
Apollo moon landings reveal a surprising number of
moonquakes occurring within 100 kilometers of the surface
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Target: Mars Mission: Mars 2020 Rover Instrument: Navigation Camera (M2020) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI |
In dramatic silhouette against a cloudy daytime sky over Paris, France,
gargoyles cast their monstrous gaze outward from the
west facade
of Notre Dame Cathedral
Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer
Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact
groups of galaxies,
now appropriately called
Hickson Compact Groups
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim poses for a portrait while wearing a spacesuit on July 17, 2024. In his first mission, Kim will serve as a flight engineer during Expedition 72/73 on the International Space Station.
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A 26 hour old Moon
poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian
Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape
The four astronauts who will be the first to fly to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis campaign – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen – have designed an emblem to represent their mission that references both their distant destination and the home they will return to.
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Target: Sky Mission: SPHEREx Instrument: Spectro-Photometer Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Can the Sun appear to rise twice at the same time?
This was just the case a few days ago from
Les Escoumins,
Quebec,
Canada as our
Solar System’s bright central orb rose just
as it was being
partially eclipsed by the Moon
In about 5 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and expand, possibly engulfing Earth. These end stages of a star’s life can be utterly beautiful – as is the case with this planetary nebula called the Helix Nebula. Astronomers study these objects by looking at all kinds of light. This images show X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (magenta), optical light data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (orange, light blue), infrared data from the European Southern Observatory VISTA telescope (gold, dark blue), and ultraviolet data from GALEX (purple) of the Helix Nebula.
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Thomas Ozoroski, a researcher at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, takes icing accretion measurements in October 2024 as part of transonic truss-braced wing concept research. Researchers at NASA Glenn conducted another test campaign in March 2025.
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What if the Sun and Moon rose together?
That
happened yesterday over some northern parts of
planet Earth as a
partial solar eclipse occurred shortly after sunrise
Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and primary contractor Amentum integrate the SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket with the solid rocket boosters onto mobile launcher 1 inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, March 23, 2025. Artemis II is the first crewed test flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign and is another step toward missions on the lunar surface and helping the agency prepare for future human missions to Mars.
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