Glorious Sunrise at the Start of a Spacewalk
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei exits the International Space Station on Oct. 10, 2017, for a spacewalk in this photograph taken by fellow spacewalker Randy Bresnik. Bresnik wrote, “A glorious sunrise greeted @Astro_Sabot and I at the start of our 2nd #spacewalk. His visor reflection shows the airlock hatch we came out.” To source
Week in Images
Our week through the lens: 9-13 October 2017 To source
Planet Mercury: Facts About the Planet Closest to the Sun
This view is one of the first from the MESSENGER probe’s Oct. 6, 2008 flyby of Mercury. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. As such, it circles the sun faster than all the other planets, which is why Romans named it after their swift-footed messenger god. The Sumerians also knew of Mercury since […]
Revisit the launch event
From ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands, watch the replay of the event to celebrate the launch of the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere To source
Mobile Stargazing: Diving into Deep-Sky Objects Using Mobile Apps
Deep-sky objects are celestial objects outside our solar system that aren’t individual or double stars. They include star clusters and nebulas located within our Milky Way galaxy as well as the multitude of distant galaxies within reach of telescopes. Many of the best and brightest of these objects were included in Charles Messier’s list of […]
Apollo 11 Spacecraft Traveling Exhibit Lands at Space Center Houston
“Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission,” the Smithsonian’s new traveling exhibition, is ready to launch on Saturday (Oct. 14) at Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas and a Smithsonian Affiliate. Small in size but giant in its historical stature, Columbia, the Apollo 11 command module, has taken center […]
Cassini Battled Saturn Hard During Death Dive
Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Cassini plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017. Cassini put up a good fight. The NASA Saturn probe fired its thrusters full bore for at least 91 seconds during its suicide plunge into the ringed planet on Sept. 15, battling hard to keep its antenna pointed at Earth for as […]
Air quality-monitoring satellite in orbit
The first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere, Sentinel‑5P, has been launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. To source