Ranger 7 Snaps the Moon
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by a U.S. spacecraft, on July 31, 1964, about 17 minutes before crashing into the lunar surface.
Peekaboo!
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay A rabbit sits in the underbrush at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The center shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/wildlife-photography-bunnies/
Hubble Images a Classic Spiral
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a wonderfully detailed snapshot of the spiral galaxy NGC 3430 that lies 100 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor.
A Saturnian Summer
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn on July 4, 2020. Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom. This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system's gas giant planets. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking shifting weather patterns and storms.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/stsci-h-p2043a-f-1592x1137-1/
Astronaut Eileen Collins, NASA’s First Female Shuttle Commander
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Astronauts Eileen M. Collins, STS-93 mission commander, and Jeffrey S. Ashby, pilot, peruse checklists on Columbia's middeck.
Chandra Sees the Peacock’s Galaxy
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is interacting with a smaller galaxy to the upper left. The smaller galaxy has likely stripped gas from NGC 6872 to feed the supermassive black hole in its center.
Explorers on the Moon: Apollo 11 Landing
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, poses for a photo beside the U.S. flag that has been placed on the Moon at Tranquility Base during the Apollo 11 mission landing on July 20, 1969.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/apollo-11-mission-image-astronaut-edwin-aldrin-poses-beside-th/
Artemis II Core Stage on the Move
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay On July 16, 2024, the Artemis II core stage rolled out of the Vertical Assembly Building to the waiting Pegasus barge at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in preparation for delivery to Kennedy Space Center.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/artemis-ii-core-stage-rollout-2/
Acting Center Chief Technologist Dr. Phillip Williams
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay "I found out years later that seeing me in high school and hearing my experience in college inspired her to major in physics, and so she became the first robotics director at her school. And now she’s a principal. And it just rocked me because I was just being me and trying to share. It seemed like I paid it forward the same way that NASA mechanical engineer made a mark on me.” — Dr. Phillip Williams, Acting Center Chief Technologist, NASA's Langley Research Center
Apollo 11 Lifts Off
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Apollo 11 launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:32 a.m. EDT, July 16, 1969. Aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft were astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Buzz Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. Apollo 11 was the United States' first lunar landing mission. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, Collins remained in lunar orbit.
A Midsummer Red Sprite Seen from Space
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Several transient luminous events illuminate pockets of Earth’s upper atmosphere. A line of thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa powers the rare phenomena.
Artemis II Core Stage Moves from Final to VAB
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay The Artemis II Core Stage moves from final assembly to the VAB at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in preparation for delivery to Kennedy Spaceflight Center later this month. Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/artemis-ii-core-stage-moves-from-final-to-vab/
30 Years Ago: STS-65 Lifts Off
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Space shuttle Columbia heads skyward after clearing the fixed service structure tower at Launch Complex Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Plant life appears in the foreground. Launch occurred at 12:43 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on July 8, 1994. Once in Earth orbit, STS-65's six NASA astronauts and a Japanese payload specialist aboard conducted experiments in support of the second International Microgravity Laboratory.
Orion on the Rise
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Technicians used a 30-ton crane to lift NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Friday, June 28, 2024, from the Final Assembly and System Testing cell to the altitude chamber inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft, which will be used for the Artemis II mission to orbit the Moon, underwent leak checks and end-to-end performance verification of the vehicle’s subsystems.
Studying Hurricane Beryl from Space
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this image of Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean on July 1, 2024, while aboard the International Space Station, and posted it to X. The Category 4 hurricane had winds of about 130 mph (215 kph).
Cassini Sees Saturn
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Saturn and its rings completely fill the field of view of Cassini's narrow angle camera in this natural color image taken on March 27, 2004. This was the last single "eyeful" of Saturn and its rings achievable with the narrow angle camera on approach to the planet.
The Maze is Afoot
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay This labyrinth – with a silhouette of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes at its center – is used as a calibration target for the cameras and laser that are part of SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), one of the instruments aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. The image was captured by the Autofocus and Context Imager on SHERLOC on May 11, 2024, the 1,147th day, or sol, of the mission, as the rover team sought to confirm it had successfully addressed an issue with a stuck lens cover.
Hubble Captures Infant Stars Transforming a Nebula
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionising radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light which can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/a-transformation-in-progress/
NOAA’s GOES-U Satellite Launches
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U) lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The GOES-U satellite is the final satellite in the GOES-R series, which serves a critical role in providing continuous coverage of the Western Hemisphere, including monitoring tropical systems in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Human Factors Researcher Garrett Sadler
#NASA #ImageOfTheDay "You know, there's the whole impostor syndrome thing, and I didn’t feel like I was qualified to be here because I didn't have some sort of traditional path or because my educational background looks different than that of most of my colleagues. But I'm now at a place where I've come to understand that's true for everyone." – Garrett Sadler, Human Factors Researcher, NASA’s Ames Research Center
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/enviromental-portrait-of-research-ast-human-machine-systems-gar/
