A young alligator rests on a concrete structure at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 25, 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/pLsW8xw

These two global views of Mars were captured at ultraviolet wavelengths, beyond the spectrum visible to human eyes. Recorded by the MAVEN spacecraft’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument in July 2022 (left) and January 2023, three otherwise invisible ultraviolet bands are mapped into red, green, and blue colors. That color scheme presents the Red Planet’s surface […]

Local students take in the sights—and data—at an Earth Information Center student engagement event, Friday, June 23, 2023, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. via NASA https://ift.tt/aJEqRPl

You’ve surely seen it, but you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight, just before sunrise or after sunset, part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears slightly dark and off-color. Called the Belt of Venus, this transitional band between the dark eclipsed sky and the bright day sky can be seen most […]

Does lightning occur only on Earth? No. Spacecraft in our Solar System have detected lightning on other planets, including Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and lightning is likely on Venus, Uranus, and Neptune. Lightning is a sudden rush of electrically charged particles from one location to another. On Earth, drafts of colliding ice and water droplets […]

The multicolor, stereo imaging Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance rover zoomed in to capture this 3D close-up (get out your red/blue glasses) of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on mission sol 45. That’s Earth-date 2021 April 5. Casting a shadow on the Martian surface, Ingenuity is standing alone on its four landing legs next to the rover’s […]

The teeming stars of the globular cluster NGC 6544 glisten in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. via NASA https://ift.tt/LIk4ndY

Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (top right) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy, at least 5 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. The appearance of this giant galaxy’s distorted and stretched out spiral arms suggests the magnificent wings of a giant bird. Of course its popular moniker is […]

During the Skylab 2 crew’s final fly-around inspection on June 22, 1973, they saw this overhead view of the Skylab Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/sFwd5vD

Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Part of a sprawling molecular cloud complex this star forming region is a mere 500 light-years away. That’s about one third the distance of the more famous stellar nursery known as the […]