Earthlings typically watch meteor showers by looking up. But this remarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down. From Garan’s perspective onboard the International Space Station orbiting at an altitude of about 380 kilometers, the Perseid meteors streak below, swept up dust left from comet […]
Get out your red-blue glasses and hover over the surface of Mars. Taken on July 24, the 3D color view is from the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter’s 10th flight above the Red Planet. Two images from Ingenuity’s color camera, both captured at an altitude of 12 meters (40 feet), but a few meters apart to provide […]
This infrared view of Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede was obtained by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its July 20, 2021, flyby. via NASA https://ift.tt/3jt82Ac
Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Less than 500 light-years away the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. Top to bottom the frame spans about 2 degrees or over 15 […]
In this self-portrait from 2018, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover sits atop Vera Rubin Ridge, which the rover had been investigating. via NASA https://ift.tt/3CiObwf
South is up in this detailed telescopic view across the Moon’s rugged southern highlands. Captured on July 20, the lunar landscape features the Moon’s young and old, the large craters Tycho and Clavius. About 100 million years young, Tycho is the sharp-walled 85 kilometer diameter crater near center, its 2 kilometer tall central peak in […]
An army marches on its stomach, the saying goes, and astronauts fly on theirs. via NASA https://ift.tt/3fxjvh7
How do supermassive black holes create powerful jets? To help find out, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged the center of the nearby active galaxy Centaurus A. The cascade of featured inset images shows Cen A from it largest, taking up more sky than many moons, to its now finest, taking up only as much […]
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Starliner spacecraft aboard is illuminated by spotlights on Monday, Aug. 2, 2021, as it sits on the launch pad. via NASA https://ift.tt/3A4FAv9
It was bright and green and flashed as it moved quickly along the Milky Way. It left a trail that took 30 minutes to dissipate. Given the day, August 12, and the direction, away from Perseus, it was likely a small bit from the nucleus of Comet Swift-Tuttle plowing through the Earth’s atmosphere — and […]