A Halley-type comet with an orbital period of about 133 years, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is recognized as the parent of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The comet’s last visit to the inner Solar System was in 1992. Then, it did not become easily visible to the naked eye, but it did become bright enough to see […]
Erosion, tectonic uplift, and a human-built dam have all helped shape the Upper Lake Powell area in Utah. via NASA https://ift.tt/S01BuUv
To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way. The Three Merlons, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, stand tall today because they are made of dense dolomite rock which has better resisted erosion than surrounding softer rock. They formed about 250 million years ago and so […]
Eta Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when – it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae’s mass – about 100 times greater than our Sun – makes it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova. Historical records do show that about 170 […]
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 […]