Not the James Webb Space Telescope’s latest view of a distant galactic nebula, this illuminated cloud of gas and dust dazzled early morning spacecoast skygazers on August 26. The snapshot was taken about 2 minutes after the launch of of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, the seventh commercial crew rotation mission […]
In this image from Sept. 5, 1983, Guion “Guy” Bluford checks out the sample pump on the continuous flow electrophoresis system experiment in the middeck of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger. via NASA https://ift.tt/cVdrQCU
Near perigee, the closest point in its almost moonthly orbit, a Full Moon rose as the Sun set on August 1. Its brighter than average lunar disk was captured in this dramatic moonrise sequence over dense cloud banks along the eastern horizon from Ragusa, Sicily. Illuminating night skies around planet Earth it was the second […]
Rocky Garcia and Wesley James prepare a weather balloon to collect wind data at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on July 20, 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/xU6nKtu
Why isn’t spiral galaxy M66 symmetric? Usually, density waves of gas, dust, and newly formed stars circle a spiral galaxy’s center and create a nearly symmetric galaxy. The differences between M66’s spiral arms and the apparent displacement of its nucleus are all likely caused by previous close interactions and the tidal gravitational pulls of nearby […]
Ringed planet Saturn will be at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth’s skies, on August 27. While that puts the sixth planet from the Sun at its brightest and well-placed for viewing, its beautiful ring system isn’t visible to the unaided eye. Still, this sequence of telescopic images taken a year apart over […]
A Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle awaits test-firing in the Redstone Test Stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama in this photo from the late 1950s. via NASA https://ift.tt/r2O6BWc
Under dark and mostly moonless night skies, many denizens of planet Earth were able to watch this year’s Perseid meteor shower. Seen from a grassy hillside from Shiraz, Iran these Perseid meteors streak along the northern summer Milky Way before dawn on Sunday, August 13. Frames used to construct the composited image were captured near […]
In this image from July 18, 2023, a NASA team helps attach solar arrays for the agency’s Psyche spacecraft onto a stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida. via NASA https://ift.tt/5d69QCW
It came from outer space. It — in this case a sand-sized bit of a comet nucleus — was likely ejected many years ago from Sun-orbiting Comet Swift-Tuttle, but then continued to orbit the Sun alone. When the Earth crossed through this orbit, the piece of comet debris impacted the atmosphere of our fair planet […]