Officials from NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the Indian Embassy visit a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Feb. 3, 2023, to view the scientific instrument payload for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission. via NASA https://ift.tt/pHc3OVZ

The featured image of the Rosette Nebula’s bright cluster of stars captures its central region in tremendous detail. It was taken in mid-January using multiple exposures and very specific colors of Sulfur (shaded red), Hydrogen (green), and Oxygen (blue). A hot wind of particles streams away from the cluster stars and contributes to an already complex menagerie of gas and dust filaments.

This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured here is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn’s cloud tops. As most of the illumination comes from the image […]

Centered in this colorful cosmic canvas, NGC 2626 is a beautiful, bright, blue reflection nebula in the southern Milky Way. Next to an obscuring dust cloud and surrounded by reddish hydrogen emission from large H II region RCW 27 it lies within a complex of dusty molecular clouds known as the Vela Molecular Ridge. NGC […]

This Jan. 10, 2013, composite image of the giant barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 combines visible light images from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope with far-ultraviolet data from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and infrared data acquired by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. via NASA https://ift.tt/19gtZHo

Stars trace concentric arcs around the North Celestial Pole in this three hour long night sky composite, recorded with a digital camera fixed to a tripod on January 31, near Àger, Lleida, Spain. On that date Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was near its northernmost declination in planet Earth’s sky. That put the comet about 10 degrees from Earth’s North Celestial Pole making the comet’s position circumpolar, always above the horizon, from all locations on planet Earth at more than 10 degrees northern latitude. In the startrail image, the extension of Earth’s axis of rotation into space is at the left. North star Polaris traces the short, bright, concentric arc less than a degree from the North Celestial Pole. The trail of Comet ZTF is indicated at the right, its apparent motion mostly reflecting Earth’s rotation like the stars. But heading for its closest approach to planet Earth on February 1, the comet is also moving significantly with respect to the background stars. The diffuse greenish trail of Comet ZTF is an almost concentric arc mingled with startrails as it sweeps through the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis.

The waxing gibbous Moon stands out in this Jan. 2, 2023, image from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above the southern Indian Ocean.

The 1970s are sometimes ignored by astronomers, like this beautiful grouping of reflection nebulae in Orion – NGC 1977, NGC 1975, and NGC 1973 – usually overlooked in favor of the substantial glow from the nearby stellar nursery better known as the Orion Nebula. Found along Orion’s sword just north of the bright Orion Nebula […]

In 2016, seven rocky, potentially habitable exoplanets were discovered orbiting the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Located only 40 light-years away, these planets are prime candidates for future telescopic explorations of their atmospheres. Join us as we explore the tantalizing possibilities of these distant worlds.

In this photo from Oct. 14, 2008, a great blue heron stands watch among a pond of water lilies on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. via NASA https://ift.tt/E9J635g