What makes this storm cloud so colorful? First, the cloud itself is composed of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice. Its bottom is almost completely flat — but this isn’t unusual. Bottom flatness in clouds is generally caused by air temperature dropping as you go up, and that above a specific height, water-saturated […]
Technicians move NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to accommodate installation of its five-panel solar array at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. After moving the spacecraft, the team had to precisely align the spacecraft in preparation for the installation. The huge arrays – spanning […]
That’s no moon. On the ground, that’s the Lars Homestead in Tunisia. And that’s not just any galaxy. That’s the central band of our own Milky Way galaxy. Last, that’s not just any meteor. It is a bright fireball likely from last year’s Perseids meteor shower. The featured image composite combines consecutive exposures taken by […]
What would it look like to return home from outside our galaxy? Although designed to answer greater questions, data from ESA’s robotic Gaia mission is helping to provide a uniquely modern perspective on humanity’s place in the universe. Gaia orbits the Sun near the Earth and resolves stars’ positions so precisely that it can determine […]
On a road trip up Mount UludaÄ in Bursa province, Turkey these motorcyclists found themselves above low clouds and fog in late June. With the bright Sun directly behind them, the view down the side of the great mountain revealed a beautiful, atmospheric glory and fog bow. Known to some as the heiligenschein or the […]
Employees from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida watch as teams with Exploration Ground Systems transport the agency’s powerful SLS (Space Launch System) core stage to the spaceport’s Vehicle Assembly Building on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. The 212-foot-long rocket stage completed its journey from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans aboard the Pegasus barge […]
As Mars wanders through Earth’s night, it passes about 5 degrees south of the Pleiades star cluster in this composite astrophoto. The skyview was constructed from a series of images captured over a run of 16 consecutive clear nights beginning on July 12. Mars’ march across the field of view begins at the far right, […]
In the arid outback of Western Australia, miners have excavated rust-colored soil to reach the precious minerals below. The open pits and ponds of Telfer mine can be seen in this image, captured by the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9. via NASA https://ift.tt/GQ2ghnx
A visitor to the inner solar system every 70 years or so Comet 13P/Olbers reached its most recent perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, on June 30 2024. Now on a return voyage to the distant Oort cloud the Halley-type comet is recorded here sweeping through northern summer night skies over historic Kunetice Castle, […]
Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by a U.S. spacecraft, on July 31, 1964, about 17 minutes before crashing into the lunar surface. via NASA https://ift.tt/bW53BR6