NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s moon Europa. The moon shows strong evidence of an ocean under its icy crust, with more than twice the amount of water of all of Earth’s oceans combined. A triangular metal plate, seen here, will honor […]
Almost every object in the featured photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured here is one of the densest clusters known – it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars – just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does. Although nearby when compared to most other clusters, […]
Two full-scale development model rovers that are part of NASA’s CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) technology demonstration drive in the Mars Yard at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in August 2023. The project is designed to show that a group of robotic spacecraft can work together as a team to accomplish […]
Comet Pons-Brooks has quite a tail to tell. First discovered in 1385, this erupting dirty snowball loops back into our inner Solar System every 71 years and, this time, is starting to put on a show for deep camera exposures. In the featured picture, the light blue stream is the ion tail which consists of […]
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has […]
Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moved across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse – others see a partial eclipse […]
This close-up from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern Acidalia Planitia. A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE image colors, to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a little reddish. But human eyes have not gazed across this terrain, unless you count […]
A tiny moon with a scary name, Phobos emerges from behind the Red Planet in this timelapse sequence from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Over 22 minutes the 13 separate exposures were captured near the 2016 closest approach of Mars to planet Earth. Martians have to look to the west to watch Phobos rise, though. […]
A fast boat is seen at sunrise after the landing of SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft a few hours earlier in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. The Crew-7 members returned after nearly six-months in space as part of Expedition 70 aboard the International Space Station. via NASA […]
This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced individually as […]