Category: Image of the day

A horse drawn caisson carries former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn to his final resting place during the interment ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, April 6, 2017, in Virginia. Glenn was the first American to orbit Earth on Feb. 20, 1962, in a five-hour flight aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft.

This illustration shows NASA’s Cassini spacecraft about to make one of its dives between Saturn and its innermost rings as part of the mission’s grand finale. Cassini will make 22 orbits that swoop between the rings and the planet before ending its mission on Sept. 15, 2017, with a final plunge into Saturn.

Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed brightly glowing auroras from his vantage point aboard the International Space Station on March 27, 2017. Pesquet wrote, “The view at night recently has been simply magnificent: few clouds, intense auroras. I can’t look away from the windows.”

Although only a sliver of Saturn’s sunlit face is visible in this view, the mighty gas giant planet still dominates the view.

Dr. Nancy Grace Roman is shown with a model of the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) in 1962. She was the first Chief of Astronomy in the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters and the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA. She had oversight for the planning and development of programs including the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3) is in the grip of the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm during its relocation and attachment to the station’s Harmony module on March 26,2017. A spacewalk by NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson, which began at 7:29 a.m., will finalize the PMA-3 cable connections on Harmony.

The mound in the center of this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image appears to have blocked the path of the dunes as they marched south (north is to the left in this image) across the scene. Smaller dunes run perpendicular to some of the larger-scale dunes, probably indicating a shift in wind directions in this area.

Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA is seen floating outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk. Pesquet and Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA conducted the six-hour-and-34-minute spacewalk on March 24, 2017. A second spacewalk, by Kimbrough and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, is scheduled for Thursday, March 30.

This enhanced-color image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian “galaxy” of swirling storms.

Hubble spots two interacting galaxies some 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo.

On April 15, 2002, STS-110 Mission Specialist Ellen Ochoa works at the Remote Manipulator System controls on the aft flight deck of space shuttle Atlantis. Dr. Ochoa, a veteran astronaut, is currently the 11th director of Johnson Space Center. She became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on the STS-56 mission.

The Expedition 50 crew aboard the International Space Station had a nighttime view from orbit of Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna, erupting on March 19, 2017. Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of ESA captured this image, writing, “Mount Etna, in Sicily. The volcano is currently erupting and the molten ava is visible from space, at night!”

“Armstrong Flight Research Center chief pilot Nils Larson and I were flying supersonic runs to note the handling qualities between the single seat and two seat F/A-18 aircraft for the Sonic Booms in Atmospheric Turbulence, or SonicBAT program,” said Carla Thomas, one of NASA’s two female in-flight photographers.