Astronaut Kjell Lindgren speaks to members of the media after arriving att Kennedy Space Center, ahead of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission. via NASA https://ift.tt/pZ9H1Uc

The eggs from this gigantic chicken may form into stars. The featured emission nebula, shown in scientifically assigned colors, is cataloged as IC 2944 but known as the Running Chicken Nebula for the shape of its greater appearance. Seen toward the bottom of the image are small, dark molecular clouds rich in obscuring cosmic dust. […]

In this image from April 10, 2022, sunlight glints off the Atlantic Ocean in this photograph from taken by the crew of the International Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/JLUvKYt

The mission was to document night-flying birds — but it ended up also documenting a beautiful sky. The featured wide-angle mosaic was taken over the steppe golden fields in Mértola, Portugal in 2020. From such a dark location, an immediately-evident breathtaking glow arched over the night sky: the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. […]

What’s that approaching? Astronauts on board the International Space Station in 2010 first saw it far in the distance. Soon it enlarged to become a dark silhouette. As it came even closer, the silhouette appeared to be a spaceship. Finally, the object revealed itself to be the Space Shuttle Endeavour, and it soon docked as […]

Taken with a camera fixed to a tripod, many short exposures were aligned with the stars to unveil this beautiful, dark night sky. Captured near the rural village of Albany`a at the northeastern corner of Spain, the three stars of Orion’s belt stretch across top center in the starry frame. Alnitak, the easternmost (left) of […]

NASA helped to create a web-based tool that helps park managers better understand the impact of outdoor lighting and noise on animal species in national parks. via NASA https://ift.tt/x5gqidO

Wind-sharpened rocks known as ventifacts, cover this broad sloping plain in the foot hills of Mount Sharp, Gale crater, Mars. Dubbed gator-back rocks their rugged, scaly appearance is captured in these digitally stitched Mastcam frames from the Curiosity rover on mission sol 3,415 (March 15, 2022). Driving over gator-back rocks before has resulted in damage […]

This artist’s impression is of a supermassive black hole that is inside the dust-shrouded core of a vigorously star-forming “starburst” galaxy. via NASA https://ift.tt/d3aQiBc

Spiral arms seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so. That’s about the size of our own Milky Way. […]