Crescent Mimas: A thin sliver of Mimas is illuminated, the long shadows showing off its many craters, indicators of the moon's violent history. The most famous evidence of a collision on Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) is the crater Herschel that gives Mimas its Death Star-like appearance. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Mimas. North on Mimas is up and rotated 40 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 20, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 100,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 130 degrees. Image scale is 4,000 feet (1 kilometer) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #moon #mimas #saturn #cassini #planets #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 21,101
We commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the raising of the American flag over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, on Sept. 14, 1814 which inspired Francis Scott Key to scribe 'The Defence of Fort M'Henry' which became the lyrics of our national anthem. As our nation celebrates the 200th anniversary of our national anthem, we remember the original inspiration for Francis Scott Key's immortal verse, "O say can you see by the dawn's early light ..." An adult osprey, carrying a fish in its talons, prepares to land in its nest atop a speaker platform in the Press Site parking lot at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image Credit: NASA/Daniel Casper #nasa #StarSpangled200 #kennedy #ksc #osprey Instagram ดารา @nasa 27,904
We all know that it's what's on the inside that counts, right? But sometimes what's outside can be just as important. At least that's the case with the International Space Station (ISS) and the collection of external instruments soon to join those already operating in orbit. Moving at 17,500 miles per hour and operating around 240 miles above Earth, the space station circles at a 51.6 degree inclination north and south of the equator, offering a unique platform to mount research equipment. The space station's orbit circles the globe 16 times daily to cover more ground at different times of day, while other satellites follow a sun-synchronous orbit-crossing the equator at the same local time every revolution. For this reason, data from station-mounted instruments can complement those gathered from similar satellite missions to fill in gaps for greater scientific returns. A view of Earth's atmosphere from the International Space Station during Expedition 23 illustrates the unique vantage point the orbiting laboratory provides for externally mounted instruments. Image Credit: NASA #iss #spacestation #nasa #exp41 #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 23,110
Ask an Astronaut: Steve "Swanny" Swanson just returned from orbit and will have a chance to answer a few insightful questions from his Instagram audience. There are three ways to ask a question: comment here with your question; share an Instagram picture holding a sign with your question; or upload an Instagram video of you asking your question. Make sure to include hashtag #askAstro so Swanny can see it. Be sure you are following @ISS on Instagram. Video answers will be posted on this account and will include the account tag of the person who asked the question. Photo credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz jsc2014e080296 #nasa #nasajsc #spacestation #internationalspacestation #explore #exploration #Exp40 #swanny #EFD Instagram ดารา @nasa 19,275
World's Largest Spacecraft Welding Tool for Space Launch System (@explorenasa): The largest spacecraft welding tool in the world, the Vertical Assembly Center, officially is open for business at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The 170-foot-tall, 78-foot-wide giant completes a world-class welding toolkit that will be used to build the core stage of America's next great rocket, the Space Launch System. SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and eventually Mars. The core stage, towering more than 200 feet tall (61 meters) with a diameter of 27.6 feet (8.4 meters), will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the rocket's RS-25 engines. Image Credit: NASA #journeytomars #sls #space #nasa #mars #astreroidmission #asteroid #astronauts #rocket Instagram ดารา @nasa 17,755
Hubble Paints a Spattering of Blue: Far beyond the stars in the constellation of Leo (The Lion) is irregular galaxy IC 559. With its irregular shape and bright blue spattering of stars, it is a fascinating galactic anomaly. It may look like sparse cloud, but it is in fact full of gas and dust which is spawning new stars. Discovered in 1893, IC 559 lacks the symmetrical spiral appearance of some of its galactic peers and not does not conform to a regular shape. It is an irregular galaxy with some evidence for a spiral structure. Irregular galaxies make up about a quarter of all known galaxies and do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence. Most of these uniquely shaped galaxies were not always so - IC 559 may have once been a conventional spiral galaxy that was then distorted and twisted by the gravity of a nearby cosmic companion. Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, D. Calzetti (UMass) and the LEGUS Team #nasa #space #galaxy #astronomy #hubble #hst #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 11,564
The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 1:48 p.m. EDT on Sept. 10. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. However -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows light in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, which is typically colorized in teal. Image Credit: NASA/SDO #nasa #sun #earth #solar #solarflare #sdo #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 19,048
View of New York City from the International Space Station: One of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting space station photographed this image of a large part of New York City on Aug. 25, 2014. Manhattan Island and its Central Park are tell-tale points for recognition purposes for the six-person crew of the orbital outpost, flying approximately 225 nautical miles above the city. The 800mm focal length used by the crew member provides great detail in the scene. Image Credit: NASA #neverforget911 #911anniversary #september11 #neverforget #nasa #space #exp40 #spacestation #astronauts Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,158
Unprecedented X-ray View of Supernova Remains: The destructive results of a powerful supernova explosion reveal themselves in a delicate tapestry of X-ray light, as seen in this image from our Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton. The image shows the remains of a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth about 3,700 years ago. The remnant is called Puppis A, and is around 7,000 light years away and about 10 light years across. This image provides the most complete and detailed X-ray view of Puppis A ever obtained, made by combining a mosaic of different Chandra and XMM-Newton observations. Low-energy X-rays are shown in red, medium-energy X-rays are in green and high energy X-rays are colored blue. Image credit: NASA/CXC/IAFE/G.Dubner et al & ESA/XMM-Newton #nasa #xray #space #chandra #esa #astronomy #supernova #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,340
Rolling Flows of Lava: As an island in the moist, atmospherically turbulent North Atlantic, Iceland is often shrouded in cloud cover and hard to observe from space. And lately, the island is making some of its own cloud cover, as the Earth has split open between the Bardarbunga and Askja volcanoes and spewed lava and hot gas. The view of the Holuhraun lava field has been spectacular from the ground and from low-flying aircraft. Infrared imaging makes the view spectacular from space, too. On Sept. 6, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this view of the ongoing eruption. The false-color images combine shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 6-5-3). Ice and the plume of steam and sulfur dioxide appear cyan and bright blue, while liquid water is navy blue. Bare or rocky ground around the Holuhraun lava field appears in shades of green or brown in this band combination. Fresh lava is bright orange and red. (Download this large image to see the same area in natural color.) Image Credit: NASA #lava #nasa #earth #earthrightnow #space #landsat #holuhraun #volcano Instagram ดารา @nasa 30,304
Flying Through an Aurora: European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst posted this photograph taken from the International Space Station to social media on Aug. 29, writing, "words can't describe how it feels flying through an #aurora. I wouldn't even know where to begin...." Crew members on the space station photograph the Earth from their unique point of view located 200 miles above the surface. Photographs record how the planet is changing over time, from human-caused changes like urban growth and reservoir construction, to natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions. Crew members have been photographing Earth from space since the early Mercury missions beginning in 1961. The continuous images taken from the space station ensure this record remains unbroken. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Alexander Gerst #nasa #iss #spacestation #space #exp40 #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 18,917
Take a Splash Into the Cosmos Millions of galaxies populate the patch of sky known as the COSMOS field, short for Cosmic Evolution Survey, a portion of which is shown here. Even the smallest dots in this image are galaxies, some up to 12 billion light-years away. The square region in the center of bright objects is where the telescope was blinded by bright light. However, even these brightest objects in the field are more than ten thousand times fainter than what you can see with the naked eye. The picture is a combination of infrared data from Spitzer (red) and visible-light data (blue and green) from Japan's Subaru telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These data were taken as part of the SPLASH (Spitzer large area survey with Hyper-Suprime-Cam) project. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Instagram ดารา @nasa 35,429
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a companion star to a rare type of supernova. The discovery confirms a long-held theory that the supernova, dubbed SN 1993J, occurred inside what is called a binary system, where two interacting stars caused a cosmic explosion. SN 1993J is an example of a Type IIb supernova, unusual stellar explosions that contains much less hydrogen than found in a typical supernova. Astronomers believe the companion star took most of the hydrogen surrounding the exploding main star and continued to burn as a super-hot helium star. SN 1993J resides in the Messier 81 galaxy, about 11 million light-years away in the direction of Ursa Major, the Great Bear constellation. Since its discovery 21 years ago, scientists have been looking for the companion star. Observations at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, suggested that the missing companion star radiated large amounts of ultraviolet (UV) light, but the area of the supernova was so crowded that scientists could not be sure they were measuring the right star. The team combined optical light data and Hubble’s UV light images to construct a spectrum that matched the predicted glow of a companion star, also known as the continuum emission. Scientists were only recently able to directly detect this light. Pictured here is an artist’s impression of supernova 1993J, which exploded in the galaxy M81. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon (STScI) Instagram ดารา @nasa 11,491
Pyramids from space: Astronaut Reid Wiseman posted this image Sept. 5 and wrote, "No doubt about it, those are some GREAT #Pyramids at #Giza." Image Credit: NASA #iss #nasa #space #spacestation #astronauts #exp40 #egypt Instagram ดารา @nasa 28,100
Our New Probe Will Study Earth's Forests in 3-D: A laser-based instrument being developed for the International Space Station will provide a unique 3-D view of Earth's forests, helping to fill in missing information about their role in the carbon cycle. Called the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar, the instrument will be the first to systematically probe the depths of the forests from space. It will reveal the 3-D architecture of forests, as depicted in this artist's concept. The unprecedented detail of these measurements will provide crucial information about the impact that trees have on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center #nasa #space #spacestation #iss #earthrightnow #earth #earthscience #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 2,038
Orion Complete & Ready for its Move: Our first completed Orion crew module sits atop its service module at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew and service module will be transferred together on Wednesday to another facility for fueling, before moving again for the installation of the launch abort system. At that point, the spacecraft will be complete and ready to stack on top of the Delta IV Heavy rocket that will carry it into space on its first flight in December. For that flight, Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion will travel 3,600 miles above the Earth – farther than any spacecraft built to carry people has traveled in more than 40 years – and return home at speeds of 20,000 miles per hour, while enduring temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Image Credit: NASA/Rad Sinyak #nasa #orion #oriontest #eft1 #space #exploration #deltaiv #spacecraft Instagram ดารา @nasa 4,968
Rocky Mountain High: @usinterior @RockyNPS is trying to reach 100K photos with #RMNP to capture 100 years of Rocky using their Instagram account. They will then select 100 photos to create an @instagram art gallery which will be on display during their re-dedication ceremony in September 2015. This image is our submission. This sweeping view of the Rocky Mountains and the western US was taken when the International Space Station traveled over eastern Washington on Oct. 17, 2003. The POV of the station was looking southeast over the mountains of Idaho (foreground) and Wyoming (Yellowstone, the Tetons and the Wind River Range are just right and above the center of the image). Great Salt Lake is in the lower right of the image. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #iss #spacestation #science #rockymountains Instagram ดารา @nasa 5,056
Another stunning moon image for International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN), an annual event encouraging people to 'look up' and take notice of the moon. This image from January 2012 is of the moon and Earth's atmosphere as seen from the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA #InOMN #nasa #spacestation #earth #moon #iss Instagram ดารา @nasa 13,202
Look Up! It's International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN), an annual event encouraging people to 'look up' and take notice of the moon. In this image, the brightly lit metropolitan areas of Torino (Italy), Lyon, and Marseille (both in France) stand out amidst numerous smaller urban areas. The full moon reflects brightly on the water surface and also illuminates the tops of low patchy clouds over the border (center). This image was taken by a crew member aboard the International Space Station on April 28, 2010. Crew members orbiting Earth frequently collect images that include sunglint, or sunlight that reflects off a water surface at such an angle that it travels directly back towards the observer. Sunglint typically lends a mirror-like appearance to the water surface. During clear sky conditions reflected light from the moon can produce the same effect (moon glint) as illustrated in this view. The observer was looking towards the southeast at an oblique viewing angle at the time the image was taken; in other words, looking outwards from the station, not straight down towards Earth. Image Credit: NASA #InOMN #nasa #spacestation #earth #moon #iss Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,613
Hubble Sees Spiral in Serpens: This new Hubble Space Telescope image shows a beautiful spiral galaxy known as PGC 54493, located in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent). This galaxy is part of a galaxy cluster that has been studied by astronomers exploring an intriguing phenomenon known as weak gravitational lensing. This effect, caused by the uneven distribution of matter (including dark matter) throughout the Universe, has been explored via surveys such as the Hubble Medium Deep Survey. Dark matter is one of the great mysteries in cosmology. It behaves very differently from ordinary matter as it does not emit or absorb light or other forms of electromagnetic energy — hence the term "dark." Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA #nasa #esa #space #science #hst #hubble #astronomy #galaxy Instagram ดารา @nasa 25,157
