Skywatching Home What’s Up: December 2024… Skywatching Skywatching Home What’s Up Eclipses Explore the Night Sky Night Sky Network More Tips and Guides FAQ Download the Video Catch December’s Celestial Highlights! This month, Venus dazzles as the “Evening Star,” Jupiter reaches its brightest for the year, and the Geminid meteor shower peaks under [...]
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft departs the International Space Station as it orbits 264 miles above the south Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand.Credit: NASA NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft departs the International Space Station on Thursday, Dec. 5, for its return [...]
jsc2024e064444 (Sept. 30, 2024) — The crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission (from left) mission specialist Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers, pilot, and Anne McClain, commander, along with Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), pose for a picture during training at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX Digital [...]
8 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Virtual meetings feeling a little stale? NASA has just unveiled a suite of new Artemis backgrounds to elevate your digital workspace. From the majesty of the Artemis I launch lighting up the night sky to the iconic image of the Orion spacecraft with the [...]
Photo of the Day This galaxy is unusual for how many stars it seems that you can see. Stars are so abundantly evident in this deep exposure of the spiral galaxy NGC 300 because so many of these stars are bright blue and grouped into resolvable bright star clusters. Additionally, NGC 300 is so [...]
Photo of the Day What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted here, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. In computer [...]
Photo of the Day Winter and summer appear to come on a single night to this stunning little planet. It's planet Earth of course. The digitally mapped, nadir centered panorama covers 360x180 degrees and is composed of frames recorded during January and July from the Col du Galibier in the French Alps. Stars and [...]
NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague services samples of the Arthrospira C micro-algae for incubation and analysis. The Expedition 72 crew is back to work following a day off yesterday to observe the Thanksgiving holiday. Space botany experiment prep and cargo operations topped Friday’s schedule aboard the International Space Station as three [...]
4 min read December’s Night Sky Notes: Spot the King of Planets by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Jupiter is our solar system’s undisputed king of the planets! Jupiter is bright and easy to spot from our vantage point on Earth, helped by its massive size and banded, reflective cloud [...]
Photo of the Day The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found at the center of this sharp [...]
