Technology Then and Now

Before there were computers and software that could stitch together digital images, they were printed on photo paper, trimmed by hand, and taped in place on a large black board. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Gqyvtz

Getting InSight on the Interior of Mars

Inside the Astrotech processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, Mars lander is tested ahead of its scheduled launch on May 5, 2018. via NASA https://ift.tt/2urTvyE

This is TESS, Our Newest Planet-Hunter

TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is the next step in the search for planets outside of our solar system, including those that could support life. via NASA https://ift.tt/2J1kCU9

Curiosity Rover Gets Ready for Its Next Adventure

This mosaic, taken by the Mars Curiosity rover, looks uphill at Mount Sharp. via NASA https://ift.tt/2pOJ4j9

Claudia Alexander and Her Life Well-Lived

Claudia Alexander, the project scientist overseeing NASA's support role in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, stands on the view deck of mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. via NASA https://ift.tt/2pHX9yJ

Hubble’s Exquisite View of a Stellar Nursery

An underlying population of infant stars embedded in the nebula NGC 346 are still forming from gravitationally collapsing gas clouds. via NASA http://ift.tt/2pxRyfc

A View From a Launch

The Soyuz MS-08 rocket launched Wednesday, March 21, 2018, bringing three new crewmembers to the International Space Station. via NASA http://ift.tt/2Gjdlk2

The Beauty of Light

The Soyuz MS-08 rocket is launched with Soyuz Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos and astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel of NASA, March 21, 2018, to join the crew of the Space Station. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FYN9Yx

Space Station Bound!

Workers are seen on the launch pad as the Soyuz rocket arrives after being rolled out by train, Monday, March 19, 2018 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. via NASA http://ift.tt/2pqzV0K

Going for Atmospheric GOLD

In late Jan. 2018, NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument was launched into space aboard a commercial satellite. via NASA http://ift.tt/2GHMTyz

Rose-Colored Jupiter

This image captures a close-up view of a storm with bright cloud tops in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FESHeN

The Aurora Named STEVE

What's in a name? If your name is Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement aka STEVE, then there's quite bit behind the name. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FF42f2

There's Always Pi!

Just by determining how circular a given crater is – using pi and the crater’s perimeter and area – planetary geologists can reveal clues about how the crater was formed and the surface that was impacted. via NASA http://ift.tt/2IncexY

Running a Real-Time Simulation of Go-No-Go for Apollo 17

Not everyone gets to become a part of history, but mathematician Billie Robertson is one of the lucky ones. In this image taken on Nov. 27, 1972, she was running a real-time simulation of Translunar Injection (TLI) Go-No-Go for the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FS6VIG

Dramatic Dione

Cassini captured this striking view of Saturn’s moon Dione on July 23, 2012. via NASA http://ift.tt/2p6YbUu

Flying over the Earth at Night II

What would it be like to orbit the Earth? The International Space Station (ISS) does this every 90 minutes, and sometimes the astronauts on board take image sequences that are made into videos. The featured time-lapse video shows many visual spectacles of the dark Earth below. First, as the video begins, green and red auroras are visible on the upper left above white clouds. Soon city lights come into view, and it becomes clear you are flying over North America, eventually passing over Florida. In the second sequence you fly over Europe and Africa, eventually passing over the Nile River. Brief flashes of light are lightning in storms. Stars far in the distance can be seen rising through the greenish-gold glow of the Earth's atmosphere. via NASA http://ift.tt/2HrQDTJ

Veggies in Space!

The crew aboard the International Space Station have grown two batches of mixed greens (mizuna, red romaine lettuce and tokyo bekana cabbage), and are now running two Veggie facilities simultaneously. via NASA http://ift.tt/2Fvm1Av

Horsehead: A Wider View

Combined image data from the massive, ground-based VISTA telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope was used to create this wide perspective of the interstellar landscape surrounding the famous Horsehead Nebula. Captured at near-infrared wavelengths, the region's dusty molecular cloud sprawls across the scene that covers an angle about two-thirds the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Left to right the frame spans just over 10 light-years at the Horsehead's estimated distance of 1,600 light-years. Also known as Barnard 33, the still recognizable Horsehead Nebula stands at the upper right, the near-infrared glow of a dusty pillar topped with newborn stars. Below and left, the bright reflection nebula NGC 2023 is itself the illuminated environs of a hot young star. Obscuring clouds below the base of the Horsehead and on the outskirts of NGC 2023 show the tell-tale far red emission of energetic jets, known as Herbig-Haro objects, also associated with newborn stars. via NASA http://ift.tt/2HkOLMJ

Imaging the Universe

Known as the 'Mother of Hubble,' Nancy Grace Roman is shown here at the Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago in 1948, where she was studying for her doctorate in astronomy. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FDE2zJ

Cyclones at Jupiter s North Pole

Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper data was used to construct this stunning view of cyclones at Jupiter's North Pole. Measuring the thermal emission from Jovian cloud tops, the infrared the observations are not restricted to the hemisphere illuminated by sunlight. They reveal eight cyclonic features that surround a cyclone about 4,000 kilometers in diameter, just offset from the giant planet's geographic North Pole. Similar data show a cyclone at the Jovian South Pole with five circumpolar cyclones. The South Pole cyclones are slightly larger than their northern cousins. Cassini data has shown that gas giant Saturn's north and south poles each have a single cyclonic storm system. via NASA http://ift.tt/2Fq3HIN

Structural Test Version of the Intertank for NASA's New Deep Space Rocket

The intertank is the second piece of structural hardware for the massive Space Launch System core stage, built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and delivered to Marshall Space Flight Center for testing. via NASA http://ift.tt/2D7lKBx

Arcs, Jets, and Shocks near NGC 1999

This tantalizing array of nebulas and stars can be found about two degrees south of the famous star-forming Orion Nebula. The region abounds with energetic young stars producing jets and outflows that push through the surrounding material at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second. The interaction creates luminous shock waves known as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. For example, the graceful, flowing arc just right of center is cataloged as HH 222, also called the Waterfall Nebula. Seen below the Waterfall, HH 401 has a distinctive cone shape. The bright bluish nebula below and left of center is NGC 1999, a dusty cloud reflecting light from an embedded variable star. The entire cosmic vista spans over 30 light-years, near the edge of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex some 1,500 light-years distant. via NASA http://ift.tt/2oPtLHf

The Case of the Martian Boulder Piles

This image was originally meant to track the movement of sand dunes near the North Pole of Mars, but what's on the ground in between the dunes is just as interesting! via NASA http://ift.tt/2tjh9wx

Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way

Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however -- like an approaching storm -- may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth's atmosphere. These gravity waves are oscillations in air analogous to those created when a rock is thrown in calm water. Red airglow likely originates from OH molecules about 87-kilometers high, excited by ultraviolet light from the Sun, while orange and green airglow is likely caused by sodium and oxygen atoms slightly higher up. While driving near Keluke Lake in Qinghai Provence in China, the photographer originally noticed mainly the impressive central band of the Milky Way Galaxy. Stopping to photograph it, surprisingly, the resulting sensitive camera image showed airglow bands to be quite prominent and span the entire sky. The featured image has been digitally enhanced to make the colors more vibrant. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FhJXqI

Building the Space Station

Astronauts Joan Higginbotham (foreground) and Suni Williams refer to a procedures checklist as they work the controls of the Canadarm2, in this 2006 image. via NASA http://ift.tt/2FrgsWT

Southwest Mare Fecunditatis

Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders journeyed from Earth to the Moon and back again in December of 1968. From lunar orbit, their view of craters in southwest Mare Fecunditatis is featured in this stereo anaglyph, best experienced from armchairs on planet Earth with red/blue glasses. Goclenius is the large impact crater in the foreground. About 70 kilometers (45 miles) in diameter its lava-flooded floor is scarred by rilles or grooves, long, narrow depressions in the surface. Crossing the crater walls and central peaks the rilles were likely formed after the crater itself. In the background, the two large craters with smooth floors are Colombo A (top) and Magelhaens. Magelhaens A, the background crater with the irregular floor, is about 35 kilometers (20 miles) in diameter. via NASA http://ift.tt/2oMkChI

Jovian ‘Twilight Zone’

This image captures the swirling cloud formations around the south pole of Jupiter, looking up toward the equatorial region. via NASA http://ift.tt/2GX7Ynp

Next-Generation Weather Satellite GOES-S Lifts Off

A ULA Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES-S. Launch was at 5:02 p.m. EST, March 1, 2018. GOES-S is the second satellite in a series of next-generation weather satellites. via NASA http://ift.tt/2CRP2nH

'Twas the Night Before Launch

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-S) satellite sits on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, backdropped by the setting Sun. GOES-S is slated to lift off on March 1 at 5:02 p.m. EST. via NASA http://ift.tt/2t6l6ob

The Lunar X

The striking X in this lunarscape is easily visible in binoculars or a small telescope, but not too many have seen it. The catch is, this lunar X is fleeting and only apparent in the hours before the Moon's first quarter phase. Along the shadow line between lunar day and night, the X illusion is produced by a configuration of craters seen here toward the left, Blanchinus, La Caille and Purbach. Near the Moon's first quarter phase, an astronaut standing close to the craters' position would see the slowly rising Sun very near the horizon. Temporarily, crater walls would be in sunlight while crater floors would still be in darkness. Seen from planet Earth, contrasting sections of bright walls against the dark floors by chance look remarkably like an X. This sharp image of the Lunar X was captured on February 22nd. For extra credit, sweep your gaze along the lunar terminator and you can also spot the Lunar V. via NASA http://ift.tt/2HSh71Q