This beautiful, blushing nebula is unique amongst its counterparts. While many of the nebulae visible in the night sky are emission nebulae — clouds of dust and gas that are hot enough to emit their own radiation and light — Caldwell 4, otherwise known as the Iris Nebula or NGC 7023, is a reflection […]
In this image from July 2020, NASA spacewalkers (from left) Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy give a thumbs up during a spacewalk to install hardware and upgrade International Space Station systems. They were photographed by the crew from inside the cupola, the orbiting lab’s “window to the
The tip of the Canadarm2 robotic arm, also formally known as the Latching End Effector, is pictured as the International Space Station soared over the South Pacific Ocean and into an orbital sunrise in this image taken on Sept. 30, 2020. The Canadarm2 is designed to grapple hardware, science experim
Space is hard, the saying goes, and conducting science in space presents challenges of its own. Few researchers have had to overcome hurricanes and earthquakes, though, just two of the hurdles a team of chemists in Puerto Rico faced getting their investigation to the International Space Station. In
A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with the company’s Cygnus spacecraft aboard, launches at 9:16 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, from the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad-0A, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Northrop Grumman’s 14th contracted cargo resupply mission for
This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643 in the constellation of Lupus (the Wolf). Looking this good isn’t easy; 30 different exposures, for a total of nine hours of observation time, together with the high resolution and clarity of Hubble, were
Our Aqua satellite captured this composite visible (left) and infrared (right) image on Sep. 29, 2020, which shows that fires and smoke continue to dominate the landscape of the western U.S. The visible image shows the smoke and the infrared image shows the heat from the fires (orange points). The C
When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, the crew brought devices with them called retroreflectors, which are essentially small arrays of mirrors. The plan was for scientists on Earth to aim lasers at them and calculate the time it took for the beams to return. This provided exceptionally precise measurem
Astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor examines her eye with a fundoscope aboard the International Space Station with remote support from doctors on the ground. As a member of the Expedition 56/57 crew in 2018, she participated in many onboard experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and E
Pictured is the Soyuz MS-16 crew ship, currently docked to the International Space Station’s Poisk module. The is the same spacecraft that launched, and will bring home, Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy, Soyuz Commander Anatoly Ivanishin, and cosmonaut Ivan Vagner. Expedition 63 will depa
