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Celebrating NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Rovers’ Mars Landings

On the 20th anniversary of the landing of Spirit and Opportunity, celebrate NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project with this two-sided poster that lists some of the pioneering explorers’ accomplishments on the Red Planet.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/e1-mer-20th-poster-vert-front-1080x1920-1-eefb7b/

Axiom Mission 3 Launches to the International Space Station

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft for Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station lifts off at 4:49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Ax-3 is the third all private astronaut mission to the space station, sending crew members Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravci into orbit. The crew will spend about two weeks conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities aboard the space station.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/afs-8-101-474/

NASA Interns at Johnson’s Rock Yard

A NASA intern uses an augmented reality headset to test out heads-up display technology being developed for future Artemis missions. This technology was created as part of the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or SUITS, design challenge in which college students from across the country help design user interface solutions for future spaceflight needs.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/52945857760-666c5484fe-o/

NASA’S OSIRIS-REx Curation Team Reveals Remaining Asteroid Sample

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. Erika Blumenfeld, creative lead for the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) and Joe Aebersold, project management lead, captured this picture using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about .4 in (one cm) in size.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/osiris-rex-pe-examination-5/

Hubble Captures a Monster Merger

This Hubble Picture of the Week features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/when-one-plus-one-eventually-equals-one/

An Aurora in Another Light

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, over western Canada on November 5, 2023.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/nameraurora-vir-2023309-lrg/

NASA’s X-59 Quiet Supersonic Research Aircraft Unveiled

NASA and Lockheed Martin publicly unveil the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a ceremony in Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/nasas-x-59-quiet-supersonic-research-aircraft-unveiled/

Verdant Farmlands of Simsbury, Connecticut

The Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9 captured this image of Simsbury on September 15, 2022. The tobacco farm where Martin Luther King worked—Meadowood—is located west of the Farmington River, a tributary of the Connecticut River.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/simsbury-oli2-2022258-lrg/

30 Doradus B: NASA Telescopes Start the Year With a Double Bang

This deep dataset from Chandra of the remains of a supernova known as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B) reveals evidence for more than one supernova explosion in the history of this remnant. Unusual structures in the Chandra data cannot be explained by a single explosion. These images of 30 Dor B also show optical data from the Blanco telescope in Chile, and infrared data from Spitzer. Additional data from Hubble highlights sharp features in the image.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/30dorb/

30 Doradus B: NASA Telescopes Start the Year With a Double Bang

This deep dataset from Chandra of the remains of a supernova known as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B) reveals evidence for more than one supernova explosion in the history of this remnant. Unusual structures in the Chandra data cannot be explained by a single explosion. These images of 30 Dor B also show optical data from the Blanco telescope in Chile, and infrared data from Spitzer. Additional data from Hubble highlights sharp features in the image.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/30dorb/

Orbital-1 Launch: 10th Anniversary

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Thursday, January 9, 2014, Wallops Island, VA. Antares is carrying the Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Cygnus is carrying science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware to the space station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/orbital-1-mission-antares-launch/

A "Green Monster" Lurks in Star's Debris

For the first time, astronomers have combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope to study the well-known supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A). This work has helped explain an unusual structure in the debris from the destroyed star called the “Green Monster,” because of its resemblance to the wall in the left field of Fenway Park.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/casa-greenmonster-2/

Hubble Views a Vast Galactic Neighborhood

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features a richness of spiral galaxies: the large, prominent spiral galaxy on the right side of the image is NGC 1356; the two apparently smaller spiral galaxies flanking it are LEDA 467699 (above it) and LEDA 95415 (very close at its left) respectively; and finally, IC 1947 sits along the left side of the image.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/its-all-relative/

Preflight Checks for Astronaut Loral O’Hara

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara has her Russian Sokol spacesuit pressure checked ahead launching to the International Space Station with fellow crewmates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/expedition-70-preflight/

Amazonian Leaders Visit "Space for Earth"

Amazonian leaders visit "Space for Earth," an immersive audio-visual installation that draws from near real-time satellite data and images, in NASA's Earth Information Center at the NASA Headquarters Mary W. Jackson Building in Washington on Nov. 17, 2023.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amazonian-leaders-discuss-using-nasa-data-to-protect-the-amazon/

NASA’s Crew-4 Q&A With Students at Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Robert Hines participate in STEM demonstrations with local students at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Washington. Lindgren, Hines, and Watkins spent 170 days in space as part of Expeditions 67 and 68 aboard the International Space Station.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/nasas-crew-4-qa-with-students-at-martin-luther-king-jr-memorial-library-2/

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 Preflight

Jupiter, top, and Venus, bottom, are seen with the crescent Moon above the Vehicle Assembly Building, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as preparations continued for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission. The agency’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission was the sixth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/nasas-spacex-crew-6-preflight-2/

Large Magellanic Fireworks

Resembling sparks from a fireworks display, this image taken by a JPL camera onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows delicate filaments that are sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/pia04609orig/

Reflection

Creating an artistic reflection, a Great Blue Heron skims its wings on a waterway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 11, 2021. The center shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/afs-8-101-470/

Research Physical Scientist Tra-My Justine Richardson

"It takes a lot of courage to confront your fears and failures. Each and every time is really difficult, but you will feel really empowered. It’s a very significant step in your life if you can do that.”

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/enviromental-portrait-of-justine-richardson/