Although it looks more like an entity seen through a microscope than a telescope, this rounded object, named NGC 2022, is certainly not algae or tiny, blobby jellyfish. Instead, it is a vast orb of gas in space, cast off by an aging star. The star is visible in the orb’s center, shining throug […]
On August 13, 2019, NASA at the Trident Basin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, astronauts Doug Hurley, left, and Bob Behnken work with teams from NASA and SpaceX to rehearse crew extraction from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which will be used to carry humans to the International Space Station. Using the ship Go
Standing among dead black spruce trees in a burned area near Delta Junction, Richard Chen, a graduate student at University of Southern California, dug soil sampling pits throughout the burned area to sample for organic carbon content of the soil, measure the depth-to-permafrost, and to make electro
The crew of the International Space Station snapped this image of a full Moon as the orbiting complex flew 270 miles above the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America. The Space Station is an international partnership of the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and C
The pair of strange, luminescent creatures at play in this image are actually galaxies — realms of millions upon millions of stars. This galactic duo is known as UGC 2369. The galaxies are interacting, meaning that their mutual gravitational attraction is pulling them closer and closer together and
This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet’s trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide impo
NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory, or SDO, was the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program, and is designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO launched on February 11, 2010, on its journey to help us understand the
Born on August 5, 1930, Neil Armstrong would have been 89 years old today. During his lifetime, he was a man of many accomplishments and when he landed on the Moon, he walked into the history books. Armstrong changed the course of history as the commander of the Apollo 11 mission, landing humanity o
NASA astronaut candidate Raja Chari climbs into a NASA T-38 aircraft, Friday, July 12, 2019, at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. Chari was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class and reported for duty in August 2017. The Iowa native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in
This week in 1971, Apollo 15 became the first mission to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle. The LRV was a lightweight, electric vehicle designed to operate in the low-gravity vacuum of the Moon. It was capable of traversing the lunar surface, allowing Apollo astronauts to extend the range of their extrav
