NASA and Boeing have completed Starliner’s last parachute balloon-drop test designed to strengthen the spacecraft’s landing system ahead of crewed flights. via NASA https://ift.tt/3gnZjNV
Don’t miss the coming great conjunction. In just under two weeks, the two largest planets in our Solar System will angularly pass so close together in Earth’s sky that the Moon would easily be able to cover them both simultaneously. This pending planetary passage — on December 21 — will be the closest since 1623. […]
The International Space Station is seen in this 13 second exposure as it flies over Arlington, Virginia, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020. via NASA https://ift.tt/3lQm0v1
These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing image of the inside of the Eagle Nebula, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense […]
A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is nearby, about 30 million light-years distant toward the loyal constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island universe is nearly 100,000 light-years across, about the size of our own Milky Way. Its bright core and majestic spiral arms lend the galaxy […]
JAXA and Expedition 64 astronaut Soichi Noguchi relaxes at the end of the work day inside the seven-windowed cupola on the International Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/2JzNwQz
Sixty million light-years away toward the southerly constellation Corvus, these two large galaxies are colliding. The cosmic train wreck captured in stunning detail in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot takes hundreds of millions of years to play out. Cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, the galaxies’ individual stars don’t often collide though. Their large […]
Lying inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way, this Herbig–Haro object is a turbulent birthing ground for new stars in a region known as the Orion B molecular cloud complex, located 1,350 light-years away. via NASA https://ift.tt/33CfUIz
Who’s watching who? The featured image of the Moon through a gap in a wall of rock may appear like a giant eye looking back at you. Although, in late October, it took only a single exposure to capture this visual double, it also took a lot of planning. The photographic goal was achieved by […]
This illustration shows Earth surrounded by theoretical filaments of dark matter called “hairs.” via NASA https://ift.tt/2I15tH0