Space

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Space Station Crew Sees Lots of Clouds



Expedition 53 Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed cloudy skies over Sudan during an International Space Station flyover on Oct. 22, 2017.

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Rare Encircling Filament



NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory came across an oddity that the spacecraft has rarely observed before: a dark filament encircling an active region (Oct. 29-31, 2017). Solar filaments are clouds of charged particles that float above the sun, tethered to it by magnetic forces.

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Samhain Catenae on Ceres



This image made with data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows pit chains on dwarf planet Ceres called Samhain Catenae. Scientists created this image by draping the grayscale mosaic of Ceres' surface onto the shape model of the dwarf planet.

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NASA plays a game where it asks questions about pictures of Earth it takes. NASA asked, "Can you identify this river?"

It's the Amazon River.

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Mariner 9 Sees Shield Volcano on Mars



On November 14, 1971, Mariner ( took this image of a shield volcano on Mars.

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NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer Mission studies the galaxies beyond our Milky Way through its sensitive ultraviolet telescope, the only such far-ultraviolet detector in space. The mission studies the shape, brightness, size and distance of distant galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic history, giving scientists a wealth of data to help us better understand the origins of the universe.

One such object is pictured here, the galaxy NGC598, more commonly known as M33. This image is a blend of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's M33 image and another taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. M33, one of our closest galactic neighbors, is about 2.9 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum, part of what's known as our Local Group of galaxies.

Together, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and Spitzer can see a broad spectrum of sky. Spitzer, for example, can detect mid-infrared radiation from dust that has absorbed young stars' ultraviolet light. That's something the Galaxy Evolution Explorer cannot see. This combined image shows in amazing detail the beautiful and complicated interlacing of the heated dust and young stars. In some regions of M33, dust gathers where there is very little far-ultraviolet light, suggesting that the young stars are obscured or that stars further away are heating the dust. In some of the outer regions of the galaxy, just the opposite is true: There are plenty of young stars and very little dust.

Far-ultraviolet light from young stars glimmers blue, near-ultraviolet light from intermediate age stars glows green, near-infrared light from old stars burns yellow and orange, and dust rich in organic molecules burns red. The small blue flecks outside the spiral disk of M33 are most likely distant background galaxies. This image is a four-band composite that, in addition to the two ultraviolet bands, includes near infrared as yellow/orange and far infrared as red.

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Hubble Shows Light Echo Expanding from Exploded Star



Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space.

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Nov. 5, 2017- A portion of the Himalayan mountain range was pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited about 250 miles above the Earth.

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Sunrise Flight to the Space Station



Orbital ATK's Cygnus resupply ship with its cymbal-ike UltraFlex solar arrays approaches the International Space Station on Nov. 14, 2017.

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Coronal Hole All Spread Out



This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a broad coronal hole was the dominant feature this week on the sun (Nov. 7-9, 2017).

It was easily recognizable as the dark expanse across the top of the sun and extending down in each side. Coronal holes are magnetically open areas on the sun that allow high-speed solar wind to gush out into space. They always appear darker in extreme ultraviolet.

This one was likely the source of bright aurora that shimmered for numerous observers, with some reaching down even to Nebraska.

Movies are available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22113

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Jovian Tempest



This color-enhanced image of a massive, raging storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

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Young Stars Emerge from Orion Head



This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows infant stars "hatching" in the head of the hunter constellation, Orion. Astronomers suspect that shockwaves from a supernova explosion in Orion's head, nearly three million years ago, may have initiated this newfound birth .

The region featured in this Spitzer image is called Barnard 30. It is located approximately 1,300 light-years away and sits on the right side of Orion's "head," just north of the massive star Lambda Orionis.

Wisps of red in the cloud are organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These molecules are formed anytime carbon-based materials are burned incompletely. On Earth, they can be found in the sooty exhaust from automobile and airplane engines. They also coat the grills where charcoal-broiled meats are cooked.

This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns (red and orange) comes mainly from dust that has been heated by starlight. Light of 4.5 microns (green) shows hot gas and dust; and light of 3.6 microns (blue) is from starlight.

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Hubble’s Cosmic Search for a Missing Arm



The dwarf galaxy NGC 4625, located about 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs) in ultraviolet.

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This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the scattered remains of an exploded star named Cassiopeia A. Spitzer's infrared detectors "picked" through these remains and found that much of the star's original layering had been preserved.

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In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. This sharp image was taken by Cernan as he and Schmitt roamed the valley floor.

The image shows Schmitt on the left with the lunar rover at the edge of Shorty Crater, near the spot where geologist Schmitt discovered orange lunar soil. The Apollo 17 crew returned with 110 kilograms of rock and soil samples, more than was returned from any of the other lunar landing sites.

Forty five years later, Cernan and Schmitt are still the last to walk on the Moon.

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The EcAMSat, short for E. coli AntiMicrobial Satellite, is seen moments after being ejected from the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer attached to the outside of Kibo laboratory module from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The E. coli AntiMicrobial Satellite (EcAMSat) mission will investigate space microgravity effects on the antibiotic resistance of E. coli, a bacterial pathogen responsible for urinary tract infection in humans and animals.

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GRAIL Bouguer Gravity Moon Map

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Alpha and Omega



These two images illustrate just how far Cassini traveled to get to Saturn.

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An Inverted Crater West of Mawrth Vallis



This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captures details of an approximately 1-kilometer inverted crater west of Mawrth Vallis.

A Context Camera image provides context for the erosional features observed at this site. The location of this HiRISE image is north of the proposed landing ellipse for the ExoMars 2020 rover mission that will investigate diverse rocks and minerals related to ancient water-related activity in this region.

Prolonged erosion removed less resistant rocks leaving behind other rocks that stand up locally such as the crater seen here and other nearby remnants. These resistant layers may belong to a phase of volcanism and/or water-related activity that carved Mawrth Vallis and filled in existing craters, and other lower-lying depressions, with darker materials.

Erosion has also exposed these layers down to older, more resistant lighter rocks that are clay-bearing. The diversity of exposed bedrock made this location an ideal candidate for exploring a potentially water-rich ancient environment that might have once harbored life.