保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Officially named W40, the butterfly is a nebula – a giant cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars may form. The butterfly’s “wings” are giant bubbles of hot, interstel...
In the early morning hours of April 12, 1981, NASA launched is first Space Transportation System, or space shuttle, mission, carrying astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen into orbit. Mission Commander John Youn had already flown in space four times, including a walk on the Moon in 1972. Bob Crippen, the pilot, was a Navy test pilot who would go on to com...
A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies fueled the unusual triangular-shaped star-birthing frenzy, as captured in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 143. The pair contains the glittery, distorted, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2445 at right, along with its less flashy companion, NGC...
Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) is in the foreground on Launch Pad 39A with NASA’s Artemis I in the background on Launch Pad 39B on April 6, 2022. This is the first time two totally different types of rockets and spacecraft designed to carry humans are on the sister pads at the same time—but it won’t be the last as NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida continues to ...
Japan’s Geiyo Archipelago, in the Seito Inland Sea, was once home to pirates. From the 9th to the 16th centuries, the pirates dominated the Inland Sea and terrorized the coasts of East Asia. Until the Shimanami Kaido (Inland Wave Sea Road) was completed in 1999, the Geiyo Islands were a remote region, accessible only by boat. This ASTER image was acqui...
NASA and industry partners are working towards a future that sees aviation meet cleaner sustainability standards. To that end, new designs for the airplanes of tomorrow, such as the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) concept shown in this image from 2021, are being tested by researchers and engineers. The TTBW is essentially a classic tube-and-wing passenger...
Every winter, a layer of carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) forms on the surface of Mars. At its greatest extent in mid-winter, this frost reaches from the poles down to the middle latitudes, until it is too warm and sunny to persist. In most places this is around 50 degrees latitude, similar to the latitude of southern Canada on Earth. However, small patches of...
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen at sunrise atop a mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B, Monday, April 4, 2022. From April 1-4, the Artemis I launch team is conducting the wet dress rehearsal test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Ahead of the Artemis I flight test, the wet dress rehearsal will run th...
Engineers and technicians are continuing to prepare for the Artemis I wet dress rehearsal test, which is slated to begin on April 1 and conclude on April 3. This close-up view shows the Space Lanch System rocket for Artemis I inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The wet dress rehearsal will begin at 5 p.m. EDT on ...
NASA astronaut and SpaceX Crew-4 pilot Bob Hines is pictured during a training session inside a mockup of the Crew Dragon vehicle at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California A pair of news conferences on Thursday, March 31, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will highlight the agency’s upcoming SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Stat...