Aurora and the Pacific Northwest: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and ESA astronaut Tim Peake shared a series of aurora photographs taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 20, 2016. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "#goodmorning #aurora and the Pacific Northwest! #YearInSpace" and Peake (@astro_timpeake) followed up with, "Getting a photo masterclass from @StationCDRKelly - magical #aurora" The dancing lights of the aurora provide spectacular views on the ground, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the sun. Aurora are one effect of such energetic particles, which can speed out from the sun both in a steady stream called the solar wind and due to giant eruptions known as coronal mass ejections or CMEs. Image Credit: ESA/NASA #nasa #spacestation #iss #aurora #space #earth Instagram ดารา @nasa 29,793

A dark solar filament above the sun's surface became unstable and erupted this past December, generating a cascade of magnetic arches. A small eruption to the upper right of the filament was likely related to its collapse. The arches of solar material appear to glow as they emit light in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, highlighting the charged particles spinning along the sun's magnetic field lines. This video was taken in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of 193 angstroms, a type of light that is typically invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in bronze. Credits: NASA/SDO #nasa #space #astronomy #sun #solar #sdo Instagram ดารา @nasa 19,150

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows us a "red and dead" elliptical galaxy -- the product of a collision between two good-sized galaxies that is slowly evolving to become a giant elliptical galaxy. Older ellipticals are nicknamed "red and dead" by astronomers because these bloated galaxies are not producing new, bluer stars, and are thus packed full of old and redder stellar populations. This type of galaxy has grown more and more common as the universe has evolved, with initially small galaxies merging and progressively building up into larger galactic structures over time. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt Instagram ดารา @nasa 88,063

And liftoff! The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched at 1:42 p.m. EST Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the Jason-3 spacecraft onboard. The spacecraft's solar arrays are out, it is power positive and engineers are beginning to send it commands. Jason-3, an international mission led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will help continue U.S.-European satellite measurements of global ocean height changes. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) #nasa #space #jason3 #earth #nasaearth #earthscience #climate #ocean #spacex #launch #nasabeyond #science @noaa @noaasatellites Instagram ดารา @nasa 83,243

Space Flower! NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly), who took over care of the zinnias aboard the space station (@ISS) after the plants weren't thriving from growing procedures on the ground, such as scheduled watering days. Kelly told the ground team., “You know, I think if we’re going to Mars, and we were growing stuff, we would be responsible for deciding when the stuff needed water. Kind of like in my backyard, I look at it and say ‘Oh, maybe I should water the grass today.’ I think this is how this should be handled.” And so, Kelly became an autonomous gardener aboard the space station. Today, the zinnias are thriving! Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #gardening #flowers #zinnias #iss #spacestation #botany #journeytomars #science #yearinspace Instagram ดารา @nasa 35,171

[Artist Concept] In a far-off galaxy, 12.4 billion light-years from Earth, a ravenous black hole is devouring galactic grub. Its feeding frenzy produces so much energy, it stirs up gas across its entire galaxy. This artist's rendering shows the galaxy. It is the most luminous galaxy known. That means that it has the highest power output of any galaxy in the universe, and would appear to shine the brightest if all galaxies were at the same distance from us. Credits: NRAO/AUI/NSF; Dana Berry / SkyWorks; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) #nasa #space #wise #galaxy #blackhole #astronomy #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 43,188

'Out over the blue,' wrote astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) when posted this image to social media. Kelly is living and working off the Earth, for the Earth aboard the space station (@ISS) for a yearlong mission. Traveling the world about 250 miles above the Earth, and at 17,500 mph, he circumnavigates the globe more than a dozen times a day. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #spacestation #space #earth #iss #earth #yearinspace Instagram ดารา @nasa 61,899

Mighty Saturn! It is easy to forget just how large Saturn is, at around 10 times the diameter of Earth. And with a diameter of about 72,400 miles (116,500 kilometers), the planet simply dwarfs its retinue of moons. One of those satellites, Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across), is seen here at lower right. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 8 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 7, 2015 using a spectral filter that preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #astronomy #space #cassini #saturn #tethys #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 64,789

A Supermassive and Super-hungry Galaxy: This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy, located over 65 million light-years away. The galaxy's orientation clearly reveals the galaxy's striking spiral structure: a flat and dust-mottled disk surrounding a bright galactic bulge. Its glowing center hosts a gigantic version of a black hole, known as a supermassive black hole. The presence of a black hole in a distant galaxy like this can be inferred from its effect on the galaxy's innermost stars; these stars experience a strong gravitational pull from the black hole and whizz around the galaxy's center much faster than otherwise. Its galactic core is not just supermassive, but also super-hungry. In 2013 researchers were observing another galaxy when they noticed a violent flare at the center. The flare came from the central black hole tearing up and feeding off an object many times more massive than Jupiter. A brown dwarf or a large planet simply strayed too close and was devoured by the hungry core of NGC 4845. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast) #nasa #space #hubble #astronomy #hst #galaxy #blackhole #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 97,901

Before drifting off the sleep tonight aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) posted this image and wrote, 'Day 287. Another week done with a flash of #lightning. #GoodNight from @ISS! #YearInSpace.' Kelly is living and working off the Earth, for the Earth aboard the station for a yearlong mission. Traveling the world about 250 miles above the Earth, and at 17,500 mph, he circumnavigates the globe more than a dozen times a day. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #spacestation #space #earth #iss #earth Instagram ดารา @nasa 40,677

Behold the most massive young galaxy cluster found in the early universe! Astronomers have used data from three of our Great Observatories to make the most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster. This rare cluster, which is located 10 billion light years from Earth, weighs as much as 500 trillion suns. This object has important implications for understanding how these megastructures formed and evolved early in the universe. This cluster is so far away that the light detected is from when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age. It is the most massive galaxy cluster detected at such an early age. Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Missouri/M.Brodwin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: JPL/CalTech #nasa #chandra #hubble #hst #spitzer #space #galaxy #astronomy #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 60,499

"Twins" of Superstar Eta Carinae in Other Galaxies: Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years, is best known for an enormous eruption seen in the mid-19th century that hurled at least 10 times the sun's mass into space. This expanding veil of gas and dust, which still shrouds Eta Carinae, makes it the only object of its kind known in our galaxy. Now a study using archival data from our Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes has found five objects with similar properties in other galaxies for the first time. Credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team #nasa #space #galaxy #spitzer #hubble #hst #supernova #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 62,863

A Supermassive Black Hole Found Burping Nearby: Astronomers have used our Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover one of the nearest supermassive black holes to Earth that is currently undergoing powerful outbursts. This galactic burping was found in the Messier 51 galaxy, which is located about 26 million light years from Earth and contains a large spiral galaxy NGC 5194 (also known by its nickname of the "Whirlpool"), merging with a smaller companion galaxy NGC 5195 Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Texas/E.Schlegel et al; Optical: NASA/STScI #nasa #space #chandra #galaxy #blackhole #nasabeyond #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 68,123

Our Curiosity Mars rover rounds Martian dune to get to the other side. Curiosity, partway through the first up-close study ever conducted of extraterrestrial sand dunes, is providing dramatic views of a dune's steep face, where cascading sand has sculpted very different textures than the wavy ripples visible on the dune's windward slope. This Dec. 18, 2015, view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS #nasa #mars #dune #nasabeyond #science #marscuriosity #curiosityrover @NASAJPL Instagram ดารา @nasa 38,644

Want to #BeAnAstronaut? We're hiring. Applications are now open. Apply today on USAJOBS: http://go.nasa.gov/BeAnAstronaut The next class of astronauts may fly on any of four different U.S. spacecraft during their careers: the International Space Station (@ISS), two new commercial spacecraft being built by U.S. companies, and NASA's Orion deep-space exploration vehicle. To date, we've selected more than 300 astronauts to fly our increasingly challenging missions to explore space and benefit life on Earth. More will be needed for future missions to the space station and beyond on our journey to Mars. #NASA #Space #Astronaut #BeAnAstronaut #Explore #Science #Astronomy Instagram ดารา @nasa 81,058

Enceladus looks as though it is half lit by sunlight in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, but looks can be deceiving. The area on the right, where surface features can be made out, are actually illuminated by light reflected off of Saturn. A sliver of surface illuminated by direct sunlight is visible on the left. Images like this one are designed to capture the extended plume of icy material spraying from the moon's south polar region. Such images need to be taken with Cassini looking toward the icy moon's night side, since the small particles in the plume are most easily seen when backlit by the sun. This view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Enceladus and was taken in visible light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on May 10, 2015. Enceladus is 313 miles (504 kilometers) across. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #Saturn #cassini #cassinisaturn #nasa #space #planet #astronomy #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 8,647

What a year! In 2015, we explored the expanse of our solar system and beyond, and the complex processes of our home planet, while also advancing the technologies for our journey to Mars, and new aviation systems as we reached new milestones aboard the International Space Station (@ISS). The work we do, and will continue in 2016, helps the United States maintain its world leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery. We will continue investing in our journey to Mars, returning human spaceflight launches from American soil, fostering groundbreaking technology development, breakthroughs in aeronautics and bringing to every American the awe-inspiring discoveries and images captured by NASA’s missions in our solar system and beyond. #nasa #science #space #explore #discover #understand #solarsystem #planet #astronaut #2015 #2016 #happynewyear #spacestation Instagram ดารา @nasa 71,024

Two become one in this Hubble Space Telescope view showing galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It would be reasonable to think of this as a single abnormal galaxy, and it was originally classified as such. However, it is in fact a “new” galaxy in the process of forming. Two separate galaxies have been gradually drawn together, attracted by gravity, and have collided. We now see them merging into a single structure. As the merging process continues, individual stars are thrown out of their original orbits and placed onto entirely new paths, some very distant from the region of the collision itself. Since the stars produce the light we see, the “galaxy” now appears to have a highly chaotic shape. Eventually, this new galaxy will settle down into a stable shape, which may not resemble either of the two original galaxies. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt #nasa #space #astronomy #universe #galaxy #science #hubble Instagram ดารา @nasa 15,525

NASA's Earth Observatory has tracked down images resembling all 26 letters of the English alphabet using only NASA satellite imagery and astronaut photography. Seen here are the first four letters, A, B, C and D from views of Utah, the Arkansas River, a Bahrain Atoll Island and Akimiski Island in Canada, respectively. Explore the whole alphabet at http://go.nasa.gov/ABC #Alphabet #space #nasa #astronauts #earth #planet #ABC Instagram ดารา @nasa 16,400

Saturn's moon Dione shows off beautiful wispy terrain alongside of Saturn's elegant rings in this image from the Cassini mission. The "wisps" are relatively young fractures on the trailing hemisphere of Dione's (698 miles or 1123 kilometers across) icy surface. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 15, 2015. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles (1.7 million kilometers) from Dione. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #astronomy #science #nasa #space #planet #saturn #dione Instagram ดารา @nasa 35,043