This Hubble image shows what happens when two galaxies become one. The twisted cosmic knot seen here is NGC 2623 — or Arp 243 — and is located about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab). (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Saturn's graceful lanes of orbiting ice -- its iconic rings -- wind their way around the planet to pass beyond the horizon in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
In this June 1973 photo, astronaut Paul J. Weitz, Skylab 2 pilot, mans the control and display console of the Apollo Telescope Mount. Weitz, who also commanded the STS-6 shuttle mission and served as Deputy Director of Johnson Space Center, passed away this week at the age of 85. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA Astronauts on Third and Final Spacewalk in October Series
NASA astronauts Joe Acaba (left) and Randy Bresnik (right) at work outside the International Space Station on Oct. 20, 2017, in the third of a series of three planned spacewalks. The two astronauts successfully completed the 6 hour, 49 minute spacewalk at 2:36 p.m. EDT. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, organisms in a Petri plate are exposed to blue excitation lighting in a Spectrum prototype unit. NASA scientists and engineers are developing experiments to determine how different organisms, such as plants, microbes or worms, develop under conditions of microgravity. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This Hubble infrared image is part of an observing program that imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters to find the brightest distant galaxies for theJames Webb Space Telescope to study. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Flying hundreds miles above, astronauts aboard the International Space Station photographed Lake Hazlett and Lake Willis in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert. Hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes are peppered throughout the arid Australian Outback. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen is suspended over a mock-up of the International Space Station during a microgravity simulation. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This sequence of images shows the Sun from its surface to its upper atmosphere all taken at about the same time on Oct. 27, 2017. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This false-color image demonstrates how use of special filters available on the Curiosity Mars rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) can reveal the presence of certain minerals in target rocks. T (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Tests Ensure Astronaut, Ground Crew Safety Before Orion Launches
NASA is performing a series of tests to evaluate how astronauts and ground crew involved in final preparations before Orion missions will quickly get out of the spacecraft, if an emergency were to occur on the pad prior to launch. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
As Cassini hurtled toward its fatal encounter with Saturn, the spacecraft turned to catch this final look at Saturn's moon Pandora next to the thin line of the F ring. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Expedition 53 Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed cloudy skies over Sudan during an International Space Station flyover on Oct. 22, 2017. Nespoli shared the image with his followers on social media on Nov. 6, writing, "#EarthFromSpace means also... Lots of clouds! How do they look from below?" (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory came across an oddity that the spacecraft has rarely observed before: a dark filament encircling an active region (Oct. 29-31, 2017). Solar filaments are clouds of charged particles that float above the sun, tethered to it by magnetic forces. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
On November 9, 1969, the uncrewed Apollo 4 test flight made a great ellipse around Earth as a test of the translunar motors and of the high speed entry required of a crewed flight returning from the Moon. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA astronaut Jack Fischer talks with veterans at the World War II Memorial who traveled to Washington, DC with the Buffalo Niagara Honor Flight. Fischer, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, wrote, "Few things can compare to the honor of meeting WWII, Korea and Vietnam vets today--thank you for your sacrifices to keep us all free." (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
