Expedition 46 crew member Tim Peake of the European Space Agency (ESA) shared a stunning image of a glowing aurora taken on Feb. 23, 2016, from the International Space Station. Peake wrote, "The @Space_Station just passed straight through a thick green fog of #aurora…eerie but very beautiful. #Principia" (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson is photographed at her desk at Langley Research Center in 1966. Johnson made critical technical contributions during her career of 33 years, which included calculating the trajectory of the 1961 flight of Alan Shepard. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 24, 2015. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The distinctive blue bubble appearing to encircle WR 31a is a Wolf–Rayet nebula — an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases. Created when speedy stellar winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by Wolf–Rayet stars, these nebulae are frequently ring-shaped or spherical. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Although Tethys and Janus both orbit Saturn and are both made of more or less the same materials, they are very different worlds. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared a series of five sunrise photographs on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, as he prepared to depart the space station and return to Earth aboard a Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft. Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov are scheduled to undock their Soyuz at 8:02 p.m. EST and land at 11:25 p.m. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 (Kazakh time). (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly Back in Texas after His Year in Space
Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA is seen after returning to Ellington Field, Thursday, March 3, 2016 in Houston, Texas after his return to Earth the previous day. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Showcased at the center of this Hubble Space Telescope image is an emission-line star known as IRAS 12196-6300, located just under 2,300 light-years from Earth. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
On April 8, 2010, STS-131 mission specialists Stephanie Wilson of NASA, Naoko Yamazaki of JAXA, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger of NASA, and Expedition 23 flight engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson (top left) work at the robotics workstation on the International Space Station, in support of transfer operations using the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm . (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
During the afternoon of March 9, 2016, a total solar eclipse was visible in parts of southeast Asia. An eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly between Earth and the sun. The MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the total solar eclipse moving across the south Pacific Ocean at 03:05 UTC on March 9, 2016. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
"Frontier Fields" galaxy cluster MACS J0717, one of the most complex and distorted galaxy clusters known, is the site of a collision between four clusters. It is located about 5.4 billion light years away from Earth. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Containing countless galaxies, this parallel field observation is nearly as deep as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. When compared to other deep fields, it will help astronomers understand how similar the universe looks in different directions. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view of Saturn's moon Enceladus that shows wrinkled plains that are remarkably youthful in appearance, being generally free of large impact craters. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The remotely controlled Sally Ride EarthKAM aboard the International Space Station snapped this striking photograph of South Africa on Feb. 9, 2016. The EarthKAM program allows students to request photographs of specific Earth features, which are taken by a special camera mounted on the space station when it passes over those features. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
March 16, 1966: Gemini's First Docking of Two Spacecraft in Earth Orbit
On March 16, 1966, command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot David Scott successfully docked their Gemini VIII spacecraft with the Agena target vehicle, the first-ever linking of two spacecraft together in Earth orbit. This crucial spaceflight technology milestone would prove vital to the success of future moon landing missions. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This image of haze layers above Pluto’s limb was taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. About 20 haze layers are seen; the layers have been found to typically extend horizontally over hundreds of kilometers, but are not strictly parallel to the surface. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Gantry Arms Close Around the Soyuz TMA-20M Spacecraft
The gantry arms close around the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft to secure the rocket, as seen in this long exposure photograph taken on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 at launch pad 1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Expedition 47 crew is scheduled for 5:26 p.m. EDT Friday, March 18. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Soyuz Lifts Off Carrying Jeff Williams and Crewmates to Station
A Soyuz rocket lifts off from rom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 19, (March 18 U.S. time) carrying Expedition 47 to the International Space Station. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
