Astronauts at Work on the International Space Station
NASA astronauts Scott Kelly (left) and Terry Virts (right) work on a Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) inside the station's Japanese Experiment Module. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens gave way to a cataclysmic flank collapse, avalanche, and explosion that killed 57 people and displaced many others. The event dramatically reshaped the volcano and surrounding land in southwest Washington. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Supporting the testing of electric propulsion and power systems, VF-5 has the highest pumping speed of any electric propulsion test facility in the world. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
SpinSat Investigation Tests New Technology, Returns Data
Equipment and data from the SpinSat investigation returns to Earth today, May 21, 2015, with splashdown of the sixth SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. This Nov. 28, 2014 photograph by NASA astronaut Terry Virts captures the predeploy of SpinSat, which was launched into orbit from the station. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory images the solar atmosphere in multiple wavelengths to link changes in the surface to interior changes. When AIA images are sharpened a bit, such as this AIA 171Å channel image, the magnetic field can be readily visualized through the bright, thin strands that ar (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This 12-frame mosaic provides the highest resolution view ever obtained of the side of Jupiter's moon Europa that faces the giant planet. It was obtained on Nov. 25, 1999 by the camera onboard the Galileo spacecraft, a past NASA mission to Jupiter and its moons which ended in 2003. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
NASA pilot Jim Less and photographer Jim Ross pull their F-15D #897 aircraft away from a KC-135 refueling tanker. NASA is supporting the Edwards Air Force Base F-15 program with safety and photo chase expertise. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This parachute testing for NASA's InSight mission to Mars was conducted inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, in February 2015. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator Prepared For Second Flight Test
The second flight test of NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will be attempted on Tuesday, June 2, launching a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. At launch time, a giant balloon will carry the test vehicle to an altitude of 120,000 feet. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Surveyor 1, the first of the Surveyor missions to make a successful soft landing, proved the validity of the spacecraft's design and landing technique. In addition to transmitting more than 11,000 pictures, Surveyor sent information on the bearing strength of the lunar soil, the radar reflectivity and temperature. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this Feb. 7, 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19, on June 4, 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars on March 30, 2015. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Samantha Cristoforetti Prepares For the Journey Home
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti checks her Sokol pressure suit in preparation for the Expedition 43 crew's departure from the International Space Station after 6 1/2 months in space. Cristoforetti now holds the record for the longest single spaceflight for a woman, a record previously held by NASA astronaut Sunita Williiams. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
Like most moons in the solar system, Tethys is covered by impact craters. Some craters bear witness to incredibly violent events, such as the crater Odysseus (seen here at the right of the image). The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 11, 2015. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
This galaxy, known as NGC 6503, has found itself in a lonely position, at the edge of a strangely empty patch of space called the Local Void. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from the European Space Agency (ESA) near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Thursday, June 11, 2015. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
The sphere of space surrounding our galaxy is known as the Local Volume, a region some 35 million light-years in diameter and home to several hundred known galaxies. The subject of this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, a beautiful dwarf irregular galaxy known as PGC 18431, is one of these galaxies. (More at NASA Picture of The Day)
