On Sept. 21, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope delivered the clearest view of Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captured several bright, narrow rings as well as the planet’s fainter dust bands. Voyager 2 was the last to detect some of these rings during i […]
Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, STS-110 flight engineer, wears a launch and entry suit as part of water survival training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Sonny Carter Training Facility near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas in 2001. STS-110 was the 13th shuttle mission to visit the Inte
In this image from Sept. 26, 2022, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, and guests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory cheer as they receive confirmation of DART’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos—the world’s first planetary defense technolo
Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft from a shipping container onto a work stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in this image from Oct. 4, 2021. DART was launched on Nov. 23, 2021, aboard a
Astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, leaps from the Moon’s surface as he salutes the United States flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 spacewalk. Astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture on April 21, 19
Our Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferries the Space Shuttle Endeavour over the Johnson Space Center in Houston in this Sept. 20, 2012, image. Endeavour’s end destination was the California Science Center, where it sits on display. The shuttle Endeavour brought the first parts of the International Space S
In this March 7, 2022, image, astronaut Frank Rubio gets help putting on a spacesuit at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to train for spacewalks. Rubio is the first astronaut of Salvadoran origin to go to space. He launched to the International Space St
This cloudy, turbulent scene acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2017 shows a stellar nursery within the Large Magellanic Cloud. This nursery, known as N159, contains many hot young stars. These stars emit intense ultraviolet light, which causes nearby hydrogen gas to glow, and torrential stel
Astronaut Michael E. López-Alegría, mission specialist, is photographed in this close-up view during one of the STS-92 spacewalks on Oct. 18, 2000. During his NASA career, López-Alegría logged more than 257 days in space and performed 10 spacewalks totaling 67 hours and 40 minutes. He flew on the ST
A little blue heron is seen in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building as preparations for launch continue, Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I flight test is the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft,
