The International Space Station was orbiting on a northeast track 261 miles above the Pacific Ocean when this photograph captured the first rays of an orbital sunrise illuminating Earth’s atmosphere. via NASA https://ift.tt/73PIDNo

In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnological constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower. In fact, monstrous clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 […]

The Sturgeon Moon rises behind a replica Saturn V rocket at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama on Monday, August 19, 2024. Over 99% full when it rose, the moon was a rare combination of a blue moon and a supermoon, a phenomenon that will not repeat until 2027. Image credit: NASA/Michael […]

Forget X-ray vision — imagine what you could see with gamma-ray vision! The featured all-sky map shows what the universe looks like to NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi sees light with energies about a billion times what the human eye can see, and the map combines 12 years of Fermi observations. The colors represent […]

Slow and steady wins the race for this gopher tortoise, ambling along the Launch Pad 39B beach road on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Gopher tortoises are dry-land turtles that live in scrub, dry hammock, pine flatwood, coastal grassland and dune habitats. via NASA https://ift.tt/q9auWsg

A supermoon occurred yesterday. And tonight’s moon should also look impressive. Supermoons appear slightly larger and brighter than most full moons because they reach their full phase when slightly nearer to the Earth — closer than 90 percent of all full moons. This supermoon was also a blue moon given the definition that it is […]

A training model of the sample return capsule is seen is seen during a drop test in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. via NASA https://ift.tt/oUMlW7P

Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide. Soaring high in northern summer night skies, it’s located some 4,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, […]

One of the most spectacular solar sights is an erupting prominence. In 2011, NASA’s Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressively large prominence erupting from the surface. The dramatic explosion was captured in ultraviolet light in the featured time lapse video covering 90 minutes, where a new frame was taken every 24 seconds. The […]

On August 11 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from a rotating planet. With a small satellite on board its mission was dubbed A Sky Full of SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites), departing for low Earth orbit from Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s north island. The fiery trace of the Electron’s graceful launch arc is […]