保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
NASA’s X-59 requires the use of creative and strategic supersonic technologies to control and soften the jarring sound that hits the ground as the aircraft flies faster than the speed of sound. One of these creative technologies is the placement of the X-59 engine inlet. This visual is a closeup looking downstream inside of the X-59’s engine inlet where, lat...
Perseverance entry, descent, and landing lead Allen Chen gives remarks during a NASA Perseverance rover mission landing update Feb. 17, 2021, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Perseverance Mars rover landed on Mars Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbi...
On April 9, 2021, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft took one last look at Bennu, the asteroid from which it scooped up a sample last October. Slated for return to Earth in 2023, the mission is on track to deliver a sample of pristine material left over from the formatio...
This June 2020 image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy cluster MACS J0416. This is one of six galaxy clusters being studied by the Hubble Frontier Fields program, which produced the deepest images of gravitational lensing ever made. Scientists used intracluster light (visible in blue) to study the distribution of dark matter within the cluster...
This detailed image features Abell 3827, a galaxy cluster that offers a wealth of exciting possibilities for study. Hubble observed it in order to study dark matter, which is one of the greatest puzzles cosmologists face today. The science team used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 to complete their observations. The two cameras h...
Astronaut Ricky Arnold is shown on his first spacewalk as a crewmember on STS-119. Before he joined the Astronaut Corps, Arnold was a teacher in classrooms all over the world, from Malaysia to Romania. Arnold also served aboard the International Space Station on Expedition 55/56. In this image, during the six-hour, seven-minute spacewalk, Arnold and fellow a...
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard – one of NASA’s first seven astronauts – became the first American in space. In this image, President John F. Kennedy, right, awards NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal to astronaut Shepard in a Rose Garden ceremony on May 8, 1961, at the White House. In the background are the other members of the Mercury Seven, NASA&#...
May the Fourth Be With You! When the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977, it featured the now-iconic two-sun, “circumbinary” planet Tatooine. At that time astronomers didn’t really know if such solar systems existed. Indeed, the first extra-solar planet wasn’t detected until the early 1990s. And, the first actual circumbinary planet was detected in 20...
Perseverance Mars rover mission commentator and guidance, navigation, and controls operations Lead Swati Mohan studies data on monitors in mission control, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient mi...
The interaction of two doomed stars has created this spectacular ring adorned with bright clumps of gas – a diamond necklace of cosmic proportions. Fittingly known as the “Necklace Nebula,” this planetary nebula is located 15,000 light-years away from Earth in the small, dim constellation of Sagitta (the Arrow). A pair of tightly orbiting Sun-like stars pro...