The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, over western Canada on November 5, 2023. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This Hubble Picture of the Week features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA’S OSIRIS-REx Curation Team Reveals Remaining Asteroid Sample
A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. Erika Blumenfeld, creative lead for the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) and Joe Aebersold, project management lead, captured this picture using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about .4 in (one cm) in size. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
A NASA intern uses an augmented reality headset to test out heads-up display technology being developed for future Artemis missions. This technology was created as part of the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or SUITS, design challenge in which college students from across the country help design user interface solutions for future spaceflight needs. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Axiom Mission 3 Launches to the International Space Station
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft for Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station lifts off at 4:49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Ax-3 is the third all private astronaut mission to the space station, sending crew members Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravci into orbit. The crew will spend about two weeks conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities aboard the space station. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Celebrating NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Rovers’ Mars Landings
On the 20th anniversary of the landing of Spirit and Opportunity, celebrate NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project with this two-sided poster that lists some of the pioneering explorers’ accomplishments on the Red Planet. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
From left to right, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, and Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel Eliav Benjamin, place wreaths at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial during a ceremony that was part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
A New Home for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Prototype
The aerial prototype of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steve F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, in Chantilly, Va. The prototype, which was the first to demonstrate it was possible to fly in a simulated Mars environment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was donated to the museum on Friday. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This high exposure photograph revealed Earth's atmospheric glow against the backdrop of a starry sky in this image taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 21, 2024. At the time, the orbital lab was 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Papua New Guinea. The Nauka science module and Prichal docking module are visible at left. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
A successful liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heads to the International Space Station for the 20th Northrop Grumman resupply mission on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. The spacecraft is expected to reach the space station Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024, bringing 8,200 pounds of science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA completed a full-duration, 500-second hot fire of an RS-25 certification engine Jan. 17, continuing a critical test series to support future SLS (Space Launch System) missions to the Moon and beyond as NASA explores the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows ESO 185-IG013, a luminous blue compact galaxy (BCG). BCGs are nearby galaxies that show an intense burst of star formation. They are unusually blue in visible light, which sets them apart from other high-starburst galaxies that emit more infrared light. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Deputy Discovery and Systems Health Technical Area Lead Dr. Rodney Martin
"... it's challenge, service, and building the future. If I don't do anything else in my entire life except for those three things, I'm at least getting something right. I might be getting everything else entirely wrong, but I can at least work toward those three things.” — Dr. Rodney Martin, Deputy Discovery and Systems Health Technical Area Lead, NASA’s Ames Research Center (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
First Artemis Moon Crew Trains for Return to Earth
NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman exits the side of a mockup of the Orion spacecraft during a training exercise in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Jan. 23. As part of training for their mission around the Moon next year, the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign, the crew of four astronauts practiced the recovery procedures they will use when the splash down in the Pacific Ocean. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Astronaut Bruce McCandless Performs the First Untethered Spacewalk
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II approaches his maximum distance from the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger in this 70mm frame photographed by his fellow crewmembers onboard the reusable vehicle. McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of the nitrogen-propelled, hand-controlled back-pack device called the manned maneuvering unit (MMU). Astronaut Robert L. Stewart got a chance to test the same unit a while later in the lengthy EVA session while the two spacewalkers were photographed and monitored by their fellow crewmembers in Challenger's cabin. Those inside were Astronauts Vance D. Brand, Robert L. Gibson and Dr. Ronald E. McNair. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The crewmen of the third and final manned Skylab mission relax on the USS New Orleans, prime recovery ship for their mission, about an hour after their Command Module splashed down at 10:17 a.m. (CDT), Feb. 8, 1974. The splashdown, which occurred 176 statute miles from San Diego, ended 84 record-setting days of flight activity aboard the Skylab space station cluster in Earth orbit. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
"... Being able to see the world from a different perspective is incredible, and getting to fly in space was the culmination of that, seeing the world from an entirely new vantage point." — Bob Hines, Astronaut, NASA's Johnson Space Center (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
STS-60 commander Charles F. Bolden is seen at the commander's station on the forward flight deck of the space shuttle Discovery. He is wearing the orange launch and entry suit. Bolden and his crewmates performed proximity operations with the Russian Mir space station. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
It’s oh-so-easy to be mesmerized by this spiral galaxy. Follow its clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to its center, where there may be old star clusters and – sometimes – active supermassive black holes. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope delivered highly detailed scenes of this and other nearby spiral galaxies in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Photographers at NASA capture the sunset on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024, near the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The iconic Vehicle Assembly Building, completed in 1966 and currently used for assembly of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for Artemis missions, remains the only building in which rockets were assembled that carried humans to the surface of another world. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
