Space Image of the Day - 2013

Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light. Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Sunday, April 21, 2013. The test launch marked the first flight of Antares and the first rocket launch from Pad-0A. The Antares rocket delivered the equivalent mass of a spacecraft, a so-called mass simulated payload, into Earth's orbit. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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NASA launched the Earth Observing System's flagship satellite "Terra," named for Earth, on December 18, 1999. Terra has been collecting data about Earth's changing climate. On February 24, 2000, sensors on NASA's Terra satellite began opening their shutters and making their first observations. The mission ushered in a decade of observations from NASA's Earth Observing System, a coordinated series of satellites that monitor how Earth is changing. This image is based largely on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) - a sensor aboard the Terra Satellite - on July 11, 2005. Small gaps in MODIS’ coverage between overpasses, as well as Antarctica (which is in polar darkness in July), have been filled in using GOES weather satellites and the latest version of the NASA Blue Marble.)Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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Following a session of Robonaut 2 operations controlled by ground personnel, Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy has a few light moments with the robot in the Destiny Laboratory onboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station.Robonaut 2 is the first humanoid robot to travel to space and the first U.S.-built robot to visit the space station.Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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Left and right eyes of the Navigation Camera (Navcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took the dozens of images combined into this stereo scene of the rover and its surroundings. The component images were taken during the 166th, 168th and 169th Martian days, or sols, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Jan. 23, 25 and 26, 2013). The scene appears three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left. It spans 360 degrees, with Mount Sharp on the southern horizon. In the center foreground, the rover's arm holds the tool turret above a target called "Wernecke" on the "John Klein" patch of pale-veined mudstone. On Sol 169, Curiosity used its dust-removing brush and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Wernecke (see NASA - Target 'Wernecke' After Brushing by Curiosity ). About two weeks later, Curiosity used its drill at a point about 1 foot (30 centimeters) to the right of Wernecke to collect the first drilled sample from the interior of a rock on Mars. This anaglyph was made with the images as captured by the Curiosity. Another version with the seams in the sky eliminated and cropped for optimal 3-D viewing can be seen at PIA16925. Separate left-eye and right-eye mosaics are combined into the stereo view. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover and the rover's Navcam. › Full view Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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The window in the sidewall of the 8- by 6-foot supersonic wind tunnel at NASA's Glenn Research Center shows a 1.79 percent scale model of a future concept supersonic aircraft built by The Boeing Company. In recent tests, researchers evaluated the performance of air inlets mounted on top of the model to see how changing the amount of airflow at supersonic speeds through the inlet affected performance. The inlet on the pilot's right side (top inlet in this side view) is larger because it contains a remote-controlled device through which the flow of air could be changed. The work is part of ongoing research in NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate to address the challenges of making future supersonic flight over land possible. Researchers are testing overall vehicle design and performance options to reduce emissions and noise, and identifying whether the volume of sonic booms can be reduced to a level that leads to a reversal of the current ruling that prohibits commercial supersonic flight over land. Image Credit: NASA/Quentin Schwinn (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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This image of Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Fjord with Kap Atholl in the background was taken during an Operation IceBridge survey flight in April, 2013. Sea ice coverage in the fjord ranges from thicker, white ice seen in the background, to thinner grease ice and leads showing open ocean water in the foreground.In March 2013, NASA's Operation IceBridge scientists began another season of research activity over Arctic ice sheets and sea ice. IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. These flights will provide a yearly, multi-instrument look at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.› Read more about IceBridgeImage Credit: NASA / Michael Studinger (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second). This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn's north pole captured by Cassini's imaging cameras. When the spacecraft arrived in the Saturnian system in 2004, it was northern winter and the north pole was in darkness. Saturn's north pole was last imaged under sunlight by NASA's Voyager 2 in 1981; however, the observation geometry did not allow for detailed views of the poles. Consequently, it is not known how long this newly discovered north-polar hurricane has been active. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red. In this scheme, red indicates low clouds and green indicates high ones. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 261,000 miles (419,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 94 degrees. Image scale is 1 mile (2 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/cassini and Overview | Cassini – NASA Solar System Exploration. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at CICLOPS - Official Source of Cassini images of Saturn, its rings & moons. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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Springtime in the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of France, as in most places, is a season of abundant growth. On April 20, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the dynamic growth of a springtime phytoplankton bloom. The swirling colors indicate the presence of vast numbers of phytoplankton – tiny plant-like microorganisms that live in both fresh and salt water. Although these organisms live year-round in the Bay of Biscay, it is only when conditions are right that explosive blooms occur. In spring, the lengthening sunlight, the increased nutrient load swept into the Bay from ocean currents and from snowmelt carried by freshwater rivers, combined with warming waters create the perfect conditions to spur phytoplankton in to tremendous growth. The result is a swirling, multi-hued discoloration that can be easily seen from space. Each year, typically from March through April, such blooms occur in the Bay of Biscay. By May, however, conditions are not as favorable and the blooms fade, then disappear. Image Credit: NASA GSFC (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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In October 2012, satellites measured subtle signals that suggested volcanic activity on remote Heard Island. These images, captured several months later, show proof of an eruption on Mawson Peak. By April 7, 2013, Mawson's steep-walled summit crater had filled, and a trickle of lava had spilled down the volcano’s southwestern flank. On April 20, the lava flow remained visible and had even widened slightly just below the summit. These natural-color images were collected by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. › Read More Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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In case anybody else is wondering.... :coffee:

The pink dot is where Heard Island, the bottom land mass is Antarctica, and the mass to the middle right is Australia.

The Heard Island and McDonald Islands are an Australian external territory and volcanic group of barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica.​
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Like a proud peacock displaying its tail, Enceladus shows off its beautiful plume to the Cassini spacecraft's cameras. Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) is seen here illuminated by light reflected off Saturn. This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Enceladus. North on Enceladus is up and rotated 45 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 18, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 483,000 miles (777,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 173 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit Overview | Cassini – NASA Solar System Exploration . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at CICLOPS - Official Source of Cassini images of Saturn, its rings & moons. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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These images of Earth were reconstructed from photos taken by three smartphones in orbit, or "PhoneSats." The trio of PhoneSats launched on April 21, 2013, aboard the Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and ended a successful mission on April 27. The ultimate goal of the PhoneSat mission was to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics for a satellite in space. During their time in orbit, the three miniature satellites used their smartphone cameras to take pictures of Earth and transmitted these "image-data packets" to multiple ground stations. Every packet held a small piece of the big picture. As the data became available, the PhoneSat Team and multiple amateur radio operators around the world collaborated to piece together photographs from the tiny data packets.The PhoneSat project is a technology demonstration mission funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and the Engineering Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center. The project started in summer 2009 as a student-led collaborative project between Ames and the International Space University, Strasbourg.› Read moreImages Credit: NASA Ames (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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The LAGEOS I, Laser Geodynamics Satellite, was launched on May 4, 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The two-foot diameter, 900-pound satellite orbited the Earth from pole to pole and measured the movements of the Earth's surface relative to earthquakes, continental drift, and other geophysical phenomena.The mirrored surface of the satellite precisely reflected laser beams from ground stations for accurate ranging measurements. Scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. came up with the idea for the satellite and built it at the Marshall Center. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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Astronaut Don Pettit watches as a technician works on the Orion crew module inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at Kennedy Space Center on March 21, 2013. The last of eight reaction control system (RCS) pods for the first flight test of Orion has arrived at Kennedy Space Center's Operations and Checkout Building from the manufacturer, Aerojet, in Redmond, Wash. The pods will provide the critical maneuvers necessary for Orion's re-entry into Earth's atmosphere during Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), scheduled to launch in 2014. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry humans farther into space than ever before. The spacecraft will provide emergency abort capability, sustain crews during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep-space return velocities.› Read more about OrionImage Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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Red and white vapor clouds filled the skies over the Marshall Islands as part of NASA’s Equatorial Vortex Experiment (EVEX). The red cloud was formed by the release of lithium vapor and the white tracer clouds were formed by the release of trimethyl aluminum (TMA). These clouds allowed scientists on the ground from various locations in the Marshall Islands to observe the neutral winds in the ionosphere. The EVEX was successfully conducted during the early morning hours on May 7 from Roi Namur, Republic of the Marshall Islands. A NASA Terrier-Oriole sounding rocket was launched at 3:39 a.m. EDT and was followed by a launch of Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket 90 seconds later. Preliminary indications are that both rockets released their vapor clouds of lithium or trimethyl aluminum, which were observed from various locations in the area, and all science instruments on the rockets worked as planned. Image Credit: NASA/John Grant (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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The sun is about to come up over the South Pacific Ocean in this colorful scene photographed by one of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station between 4 and 5 a.m. local time, May 5, 2013. The space station was at a point above Earth located at 27.4 degrees south latitude and 110.1 degrees west longitude, a few hundred miles east of Easter Island.Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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NASA's new Earth-bound rover began testing on the Greenland ice sheet this week. GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, is an autonomous, solar-operated robot that carries a ground-penetrating radar to examine the layers of Greenland’s ice sheet. Its findings will help scientists understand how the massive ice sheet gains and loses ice. The GROVER team, led by glaciologist Lora Koenig from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., arrived in Summit Camp, the highest spot in Greenland, on May 6, 2013. After loading and testing the rover’s radar and fixing a minor communications glitch, the team began the robot’s tests on the ice on May 8, defying winds of up to 23 mph (37 kph) and temperatures as low as minus 22 F (minus 30 C). The GROVER tests will continue through June 8. GROVER, a prototype, was first developed in 2010 and 2011 during summer engineering boot camps at Goddard, before further refinement, with NASA funding, at Boise State University. Its trial in Greenland will also serve as a test of using rovers in harsh polar regions to gather data. › Read MoreImage Credit: Lora Koenig / NASA Goddard (More at NASA Picture of The Day)

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