Space NASA Image of the Day

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka (top), Expedition 32 commander; and Yuri Malenchenko, flight engineer, participate in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) to continue outfitting the International Space Station. During the five-hour, 51-minute spacewalk on August 20, 2012, Padalka and Malenchenko moved the Strela-2 cargo boom from the Pirs docking compartment to the Zarya module to prepare Pirs for its eventual replacement with a new Russian multipurpose laboratory module. The two spacewalking cosmonauts also installed micrometeoroid debris shields on the exterior of the Zvezda service module and deployed a small science satellite. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This image shows the tracks left by NASA's Curiosity rover on Aug. 22, 2012, as it completed its first test drive on Mars. The rover went forward 15 feet (4.5 meters), rotated 120 degrees and then reversed 8.2 feet (2.5 meters). Curiosity is now 20 feet (6 meters) from its landing site, named Bradbury Landing. This image was taken by a front Hazard-Avoidance camera, which has a fisheye lens. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Water impact test of an 18,000-pound (8,165 kilogram) test version of the Orion spacecraft at NASA's Langley Research Center on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. Swing drop testing began last summer at Langley's Hydro Impact Basin to certify the Orion spacecraft for water landings. In this series of tests, Orion is being dropped vertically into the pool for the first time, which will help fine-tune the way NASA predicts Orion's landing loads. The Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), NASA’s next crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket, will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Astronaut Neil Armstrong received the first Congressional Space Medal of Honor from President Jimmy Carter, assisted by Captain Robert Peterson. Armstrong, one of six astronauts to be presented the medal during ceremonies held in the Vehicle Assembly Building, was awarded for his performance during the Gemini 8 mission and the Apollo 11 mission when he became the first human to set foot upon the moon. Armstrong died on Aug. 25, 2012, at the age of 82. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


As commander of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong took most of the photographs from the historic moonwalk, but this rare shot from fellow moonwalker Buzz Aldrin shows Armstrong at work near the lunar module Eagle. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This 1961 photo shows Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presenting a Mariner spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy, (right). NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model. Mariner 2 launched fifty years ago on Aug. 27, 1962. The Mariner 2 probe flew by Venus in 1962, sending back data on its atmosphere, mass, and weather patterns. It stopped transmitting in 1963 after delivering a wealth of scientific information. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This visible image of Tropical Storm Isaac taken from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite shows the huge extent of the storm, where the eastern-most clouds lie over the Carolinas and the western-most clouds are brushing east Texas. The image was captured on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 at 10:25 a.m. EDT. Image Credit: NASA GOES Project (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This computer generated montage shows Neptune as it would appear from a spacecraft approaching Triton, Neptune's largest moon. The wind and sublimation eroded south polar cap of Triton is shown at the bottom of the Triton image, a cryovolcanic terrain at the upper right, and the enigmatic "cantaloupe terrain" at the upper left. Voyager 2 flew by Triton and Neptune on Aug. 29, 1989. (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Early on August 29, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the Suomi-NPP satellite captured this nighttime view of Hurricane Isaac and the cities near the Gulf Coast of the United States. The image was acquired at 1:57 a.m. local time by the VIIRS "day-night band," which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses light intensification to enable the detection of dim signals. In this case, the clouds of Isaac were lit by moonlight. Issac, a slow-moving storm, made landfall as a category 1 hurricane near the mouth of the Mississippi River in southwestern Louisiana at about 6:45 p.m. local time on August 28, 2012. › More on Isaac Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[actionavenue]

Very ominous! We need to keep the people of the Gulf in our thoughts and prayers.

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, measures 3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers, across and is larger than the planet Mercury. Cassini scientists have been watching the moon's south pole since a vortex appeared in its atmosphere in 2012. See PIA14919 and PIA14920 to learn more about this mass of swirling gas around the pole in the atmosphere of the moon. As the seasons have changed in the Saturnian system, and spring has come to the north and autumn to the south, the azure blue in the northern Saturnian hemisphere that greeted Cassini upon its arrival in 2004 is now fading. The southern hemisphere, in its approach to winter, is taking on a bluish hue. This change is likely due to the reduced intensity of ultraviolet light and the haze it produces in the hemisphere approaching winter, and the increasing intensity of ultraviolet light and haze production in the hemisphere approaching summer. (The presence of the ring shadow in the winter hemisphere enhances this effect.) The reduction of haze and the consequent clearing of the atmosphere makes for a bluish hue: the increased opportunity for direct scattering of sunlight by the molecules in the air makes the sky blue, as on Earth. The presence of methane, which generally absorbs in the red part of the spectrum, in a now clearer atmosphere also enhances the blue. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane. This mosaic combines six images -- two each of red, green and blue spectral filters -- to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on May 6, 2012, at a distance of approximately 483,000 miles (778,000 kilometers) from Titan. Image scale is 29 miles (46 kilometers) per pixel on Titan. 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. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

NASA: Neil Armstrong Memorial

(click to view the full-size image)


Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell, left, former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, Sen. John Glenn, third from left, and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, right, talk at a private memorial service celebrating the life of Neil Armstrong, Aug. 31, 2012, at the Camargo Club in Cincinnati. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, died Saturday, Aug. 25. He was 82. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


A rare second Full Moon of the month, known as a "Blue Moon," is seen over Cincinnati on Friday, Aug. 31, 2012. The family of Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong held a memorial service celebrating his life earlier in the day in Cincinnati. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, died Saturday, Aug. 25. He was 82. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Buoys used to support scientific instruments at sea are seen in the foreground prior to being loaded onboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's research vessel Knorr, seen in the background, on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012, in Woods Hole, Mass. Knorr is scheduled to depart on Sept. 6 to take part in the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS). The NASA-sponsored expedition will sail to the North Atlantic's saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean's upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This oblique, night time panorama of much of Europe was photographed by one of the Expedition 32 crew members aboard the International Space Station flying approximately 240 miles above the Mediterranean Sea on Aug. 18, 2012. The country of Italy is visible running diagonally southward from the horizon across the center of the frame, with the night lights of Rome and Naples being visible on the coast near the center. Sardinia and Corsica are just above left center of the photo, and Sicily is at lower left. The Adriatic Sea is on the other side of Italy, and beyond it to the east and north can be seen parts of several other European nations. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Expedition 32 flight engineer, appears to touch the bright sun during the mission’s third session of extravehicular activity (EVA) on Sept. 5, 2012. During the six-hour, 28-minute spacewalk, Williams and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide (visible in the reflections of Williams’ helmet visor), flight engineer, completed the installation of a Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) that was hampered by a possible misalignment and damaged threads where a bolt must be placed. They also installed a camera on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2. Image Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


This view of the three left wheels of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines two images that were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Sept. 9, 2012). In the distance is the lower slope of Mount Sharp. The camera is located in the turret of tools at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. The Sol 34 imaging by MAHLI was part of a week-long set of activities for characterizing the movement of the arm in Mars conditions. The main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site. The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity, providing versatility for other uses, such as views of the rover itself from different angles. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from the Manhattan area after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center. This photo was taken of metropolitan New York City (and other parts of New York as well as New Jersey) the morning of September 11, 2001. "Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there, and everywhere else," said Station Commander Frank Culbertson of Expedition 3, after the terrorists' attacks. The following day, he posted a public letter that captured his initial thoughts of the events as they unfolded. "The world changed today. What I say or do is very minor compared to the significance of what happened to our country today when it was attacked." Upon further reflection, Culbertson said, "It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are." › Culbertson's Letter from Sept. 11, 2001 › 2010 Video: Frank Culbertson Remembers 9/11 Ten Years Later Image credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

(click to view the full-size image)


President John F. Kennedy, right, gets an explanation of the Saturn V launch system from Dr. Wernher von Braun, center, at Cape Canaveral in November 1963. NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans is to the left of von Braun. 50 years ago, on September 12, 1962, Kennedy gave an address at Rice University making the case for why the United States should go to the moon with the Apollo program, an initiative he'd launched the previous year. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things," said Kennedy, "not because they are easy, but because they are hard. › More on the Rice Speech Credit: NASA (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)

 

[Robby]

NASA: Armstrong Memorial Service

(click to view the full-size image)


Attendees of the memorial service for Neil Armstrong sing a hymnal, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, at the Washington National Cathedral. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, died Saturday, Aug. 25. He was 82. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls (More at NASA Picture Of The Day)