Close-up of the Planet Mars

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 34,648,840 miles (55,760,220 km) away. This color image was assembled from a series of exposures taken between 6:20 p.m. and 7:12 p.m. EDT Aug. 26 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The picture was taken just 11 hours before the planet made its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.

Earthrise at Christmas

Thirty-five years ago this Christmas, a turbulent world looked to the heavens for a unique view of our home planet. This photo of "Earthrise" over the lunar horizon was taken by the Apollo 8 crew in December 1968, showing Earth for the first time as it appears from deep space.

Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders had become the first humans to leave Earth orbit, entering lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. In a historic live broadcast that night, the crew took turns reading from the Book of Genesis, closing with a holiday wish from Commander Borman: "We close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth."

Venus: Full View by Magellan Spacecraft

The hemispheric view of Venus, as revealed by more than a decade of radar investigations culminating in the 1990-1994 Magellan mission, is centered at zero degrees East longitude. The Magellan spacecraft imaged more than 98 percent of Venus at a resolution of about 100 meters.

A mosaic of the Magellan images (most with illumination from the west) forms the image base. Gaps in the Magellan coverage were filled with images from the Earth-based Arecibo radar in a region centered roughly on zero degree latitude and longitude, and with a neutral tone elsewhere (primarily near the south pole). The composite image was processed to improve contrast and to emphasize small features, and was color-coded to represent elevation. Gaps in the elevation data from the Magellan radar altimeter were filled with altimetry from the Venera spacecraft and the U.S. Pioneer Venus missions.

Image credit: NASA

SuitSat-1 Floats Free

A space suit floats freely away from the International Space Station in a scene reminiscent of a sci-fi movie. But this time, no investigation is needed. The suit is actually the world's latest satellite and was launched on Feb. 3, 2006. Dubbed SuitSat-1, the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a radio transmitter and released to orbit the Earth.

Image Credit: NASA

Triangulum Galaxy

The spiral galaxy M33 also is called the Triangulum Galaxy for the constellation in which it resides. About four times smaller (in radius) than our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), it is much larger than the many of the local dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The galaxy's proximity to M31 causes it to be thought by some to be a satellite galaxy of this more massive galaxy.

In the above picture, visible light is shown in red and ultraviolet light superposed in blue. Stars in M33 are the most distant ever to be studied spectroscopically.

Image credit: NASA, UIT

Milky Way Neighbor

Our Sun and solar system are embedded in a broad pancake of stars deep within the disk of the Milky Way galaxy. Even from a distance, it is impossible to see our galaxy's large-scale features other than the disk.

The next best thing is to look farther out into the universe at galaxies that are similar in shape and structure to our home galaxy. Other spiral galaxies like NGC 3949, pictured in this Hubble image, fit the bill. Like our Milky Way, this galaxy has a blue disk of young stars peppered with bright pink star-birth regions. In contrast to the blue disk, the bright central bulge is made up of mostly older, redder stars.

NGC 3949 lies about 50 million light-years from Earth. It is a member of a loose cluster of some six or seven dozens of galaxies located in the direction of the Big Dipper, in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). It is one of the larger galaxies of this cluster.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

Space Shuttle Endeavour

After a nearly 7-hour trip, Space Shuttle Endeavour, atop the mobile launcher platform, is hard down on Launch Pad 39A. First motion out of the Vehicle Assembly Building was at 8:10 p.m. July 10.

The components of the shuttle are, first, the orbiter and then the solid rocket boosters flanking the external tank behind it. Seen below the orbiter's wings are the tail masts, which provide several umbilical connections to the orbiter, including a liquid-oxygen line through one and a liquid-hydrogen line through another.

Endeavour is scheduled to launch on mission STS-118 on Aug. 7. During the mission, Endeavour will carry into orbit the S5 truss, SPACEHAB module and external stowage platform 3. The mission is the 22nd flight to the International Space Station and will mark the first flight of Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, the teacher-turned-astronaut whose association with NASA began more than 20 years ago. STS-118 will be the first flight since 2002 for Endeavour, which has undergone extensive modifications, including the addition of safety upgrades already added to orbiters Discovery and Atlantis.

Image credit: NASA/George Shelton

Saturn: At a Tilt

Colorful Saturn tilts its darkened ringplane toward Cassini. Against the dark sky, the rings are made visible by the light that scatters through them toward the camera.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings. The planet is visible through the innermost and outermost portions of the rings.

Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 13, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn: Ringworld Waiting

Saturn's peaceful beauty invites the Cassini spacecraft for a closer look in this natural color view, taken during the spacecraft's approach to the planet. By this point in the approach sequence, Saturn was large enough that two narrow angle camera images were required to capture an end-to-end view of the planet, its delicate rings and several of its icy moons. The composite is made entire from these two images.

The images were taken on May 7, 2004 from a distance of 28.2 million kilometers (17.6 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 169 kilometers (105 miles) per pixel.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Ring Around the Cosmos

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective -- our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star.

Astronomers of the Hubble Heritage Project produced this strikingly sharp image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope by using natural colors to indicate the temperature of the stellar gas shroud. Hot blue gas near the energizing central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Lyra.

Image From Astronomy Picture of the Day, Credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

Mystery Blobs

This artist's concept illustrates one possible answer to the puzzle of the "giant galactic blobs." These blobs (red), first identified about five years ago, are mammoth clouds of intensely glowing material that surround distant galaxies (white). Astronomers using visible-light telescopes can see the glow of the blobs, but they didn't know what provides the energy to light them up. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its infrared eyes on one well-known blob located 11 billion light-years away, and discovered three tremendously bright galaxies, each shining with the light of more than one trillion of Earth's suns, headed toward each other.

Spitzer also observed three other blobs in the same galactic neighborhood and found equally bright galaxies within them. One of these blobs is also known to contain galaxies merging together. The findings suggest that galactic mergers might be the mysterious source of blobs.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)

Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon With Odd Craters

What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? Noone knows. To help find out, Cassini took this image, containing unprecedented detail, as the spacecraft swept past the sponge-textured moon in late 2005.

The image shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and odd surfaces. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material. Inspection of the image shows bright features indicating that the dark material might be only tens of meters thick in some places. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI and Cassini Imaging Team

A Long Way from Home

This image of the Earth and moon in a single frame, the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft, was recorded on Sept. 18, 1977, by Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager.

In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken.

The photo was made from three images taken through color filters, then processed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Because the Earth is many times brighter than the moon, the moon was artificially brightened so that both bodies would show clearly in the prints.

Image credit: NASA

Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis

Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend the event. The launch of a rocket bound for space inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the International Space Station during the early morning hours of July 12, 2001, one of six missions during the first year of the new millenium. From a standing start, the 2 million kilogram (4.4 million pound) rocket ship lifted off on a journey to circle the Earth that lasted 12 days.

Image credit: NASA

Altitude Wind Tunnel: Historical Turning Point

Cleveland's Glenn Research Center began as the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA's predecessor). The Altitude Wind Tunnel, built in 1944, could run at 250-425 mph at simulated altitudes of 1,000-30,000 feet. It was the only known wind tunnel specifically designed to test aircraft engines at such conditions. Tests in the tunnel assisted in solving engine-cooling problems for the B-29 bomber plane of World War II. The first wind tunnel tests on American jet engine prototypes were conducted here. The vertical structures shown are "turning vanes" added on the downstream surface to straighten the flow through an elbow of the tunnel that is no longer in service.

Image credit: NASA