Watch the stars and from them learn. To the Master's honor all must turn, Each in its track, without a sound, Forever tracing Newton's ground

— Albert Einstein

NASA Image of the Day

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The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.
Updated: 10 hours 22 min ago

Sending “Water” to Europa

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:57am
NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter's moon Europa. The moon shows strong evidence of an ocean under its icy crust, with more than twice the amount of water of all of Earth's oceans combined. A triangular metal plate, seen here, will honor that connection to Earth. The plate is made of tantalum metal and is about 7 by 11 inches (18 by 28 centimeters). It is engraved on both sides and seals an opening in the electronics vault, which houses the spacecraft's sensitive electronics. The art on this side of the plate features waveforms that are visual representations of the sound waves formed by the word "water" in 103 languages. The waveforms radiate out from a symbol representing the American Sign Language sign for "water."
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

CADRE Rovers’ Test Drive in the Mars Yard

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 3:43pm
Two full-scale development model rovers that are part of NASA's CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) technology demonstration drive in the Mars Yard at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in August 2023. The project is designed to show that a group of robotic spacecraft can work together as a team to accomplish tasks and record data autonomously – without explicit commands from mission controllers on Earth.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Hubble Views a Galaxy Under Pressure

Mon, 03/25/2024 - 11:30am
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has dramatic effects on star formation in LEDA 42160.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

A Tranquil Sunrise

Thu, 03/21/2024 - 12:47pm
A fast boat is seen at sunrise after the landing of SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft a few hours earlier in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. The Crew-7 members returned after nearly six-months in space as part of Expedition 70 aboard the International Space Station.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Ocean Worlds Planetary Scientist Dr. Lynnae Quick

Wed, 03/20/2024 - 11:07am
"I've come a long way from thinking, 'Well, I did this whole dissertation on geysers, what it would take for them to erupt, for a spacecraft to see them, and that people might not take me seriously as a scientist because of it,' to being on the Europa Clipper camera team involved in investigating these plumes and ensuring we can image them if they're there. It's a full-circle moment." – Dr. Lynnae Quick, Ocean Worlds Planetary Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Gemini VI Astronauts Thomas P. Stafford and Walter M. Schirra Jr.

Tue, 03/19/2024 - 10:29am
Gemini VI astronauts Thomas P. Stafford (left), pilot, and Walter M. Schirra Jr., command pilot, are shown during suiting up exercises at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

St. Patrick's Aurora Illuminates the Night Sky

Fri, 03/15/2024 - 1:53pm
This majestic image of the dazzling green lights of the aurora borealis was captured on March 17, 2015, around 5:30 a.m. EDT in Donnelly Creek, Alaska.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Celebrating Pi Day on the International Space Station

Thu, 03/14/2024 - 2:47pm
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen holds a small pie that is festively decorated in commemoration of Pi Day aboard the International Space Station.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Apollo 9 Crew Comes Home

Wed, 03/13/2024 - 2:47pm
Immediately after splashdown, a recovery helicopter from the USS Guadalcanal hovers over the Apollo 9 spacecraft. Still inside the Command Module are astronauts James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, and Russell L. Schweickart. Splashdown occurred at 12:00:53 p.m. EST March 13, 1969, only 4.5 nautical miles from the USS Guadalcanal, the prime recovery ship, to conclude a successful 10-day Earth-orbital mission in space.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

NASA Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara Read First Woman

Tue, 03/12/2024 - 2:03pm
Expedition 70 Flight Engineers (from left) Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, both NASA astronauts, are pictured inside the International Space Station's cupola holding NASA's first graphic novel, "First Woman."
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Moon and Sun Over Wyoming

Mon, 03/11/2024 - 1:53pm
The Moon is seen passing in front of the Sun at the point of the maximum of the partial solar eclipse near Banner, Wyoming on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of South America, Africa, and Europe. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Martian Barchan Dunes

Fri, 03/08/2024 - 3:17pm
This image shows two types of sand dunes on Mars. The small dots are called barchan dunes, and from their shape we can tell that they are upwind. The downwind dunes are long and linear. These two types of dune each show the wind direction in different ways: the barchans have a steep slope and crescent-shaped "horns" that point downwind, while the linear dunes are stretched out along the primary wind direction. Linear dunes, however, typically indicate a wind regime with at least two different prevailing winds, which stretch out the sand along their average direction. In several places in this image, you can find barchan dunes turning into linear dunes as they are stretched out, but they both seem into indicate the same wind direction.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Apollo 9 Astronaut David Scott’s Spacewalk

Thu, 03/07/2024 - 1:42pm
Excellent view of the docked Apollo 9 command and service modules (CSM) and lunar module (LM), with Earth in the background, during astronaut David R. Scott's stand-up spacewalk, on the fourth day of the Apollo 9 Earth-orbital mission. Scott, command module pilot, is standing in the open hatch of the command module. Astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, lunar module pilot, took this photograph of Scott from the porch of the LM. Inside the LM was astronaut James A. McDivitt, Apollo 9 commander.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

NASA’s Newest Astronauts

Wed, 03/06/2024 - 11:46am
NASA newest class of astronauts, selected in 2021, graduate during a ceremony on March 5, 2024, at the at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Women of NASA Langley Research Center

Mon, 03/04/2024 - 2:54pm
In honor of Women’s History Month 2024 and those who paved the way for them, hundreds of female staff – from artists to administrative support, educators to engineers, and scientists to safety officers – gathered in front of the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Feb. 6, 2024.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Hubble Uncovers a Celestial Fossil

Fri, 03/01/2024 - 1:47pm
This densely populated group of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1841, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy that lies about 162,000 light-years away. Satellite galaxies are bound by gravity in orbits around a more massive host galaxy. We typically think of the Andromeda Galaxy as our galaxy’s nearest galactic companion, but it is more accurate to say that Andromeda is the nearest galaxy that is not in orbit around the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, dozens of satellite galaxies orbit our galaxy and they are far closer than Andromeda. The largest and brightest of these is the LMC, which is easily visible to the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere under dark sky conditions away from light pollution.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Odysseus Lands on the Moon

Thu, 02/29/2024 - 2:32pm
Following a launch on Feb. 15, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander touched down in the Moon’s south polar region on Feb. 22 and has since transmitted valuable scientific data back to Earth.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA