THE 2014 SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS FROM SPACE Photograph by NASA ISS038-E-042992 (10 Feb. 2014) — One of the Expedition 38 crew members aboard the International Space Station downlinked this vertical 600mm night view of Sochi, Russia, which clearly shows the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics while they are just a few…
Trying to comprehend the expanse of space is a daunting task. Just reading about the distance between Earth and the nearest star/planet/galaxy is enough to boggle most minds. So the thought of miniaturizing something so expansive as the Cosmos is both fascinating and counter-intuitive. Last month reddit user TheScienceLlama used the Tilt-Shift filter in…
THE SPACE SELFIE Photograph by NASA On Dec. 24, 2013, NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer, participates in the second of two U.S. spacewalks, spread over a four-day period, which were designed to allow the crew to change out a faulty water pump on the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International…
Image by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Seen above is a view of the Earth on September 21, 2005 with the full Antarctic region visible. The composite image shows the sea ice on September 21, 2005, the date at which the sea ice was at its minimum extent in the northern hemisphere. The colour of…
THIS STAR CLUSTER IS 12 BILLION YEARS OLD Photograph by NASA/ESA [NASA/ESA] – This cluster of stars is known as Messier 15, and is located some 35 000 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (The Winged Horse). It is one of the oldest globular clusters known, with an age of around…
Photograph by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI For a sense of scale, the image above sweeps nearly 405,000 miles (651,784 km) across Saturn and its inner rings. It’s the first image ever taken that shows Saturn, its moons and rings, Venus, Mars and Earth all at once. Unveiled on Tuesday, the natural-color, panoramic mosaic taken by NASA’s Cassini…
IN AWE OF THE AURORA Photograph by NASA NASA ISS023-E-058455 (29 May 2010) – Aurora Australis is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station. Among the views of Earth afforded crew members aboard the ISS, surely one of the most spectacular is of…
A CANYON OF FIRE ON THE SUN Photograph by NASA/SDO NASA/SDO – A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon…
THE FIRST UNTETHERED FREE FLIGHT IN SPACE Photograph by NASA In this mind-blowing photograph, taken 12 February 1984, Mission Specialist Bruce McCandless II, is seen further away from the confines and safety of his ship than any previous astronaut had ever been. This ‘space first’ was made possible by the Manned Maneuvering…
ONE GIANT LEAP Photograph by NASA Wallops Flight Facility/Chris Perry Last Friday a frog managed to photobomb a NASA spacecraft launch. Posted earlier this week to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Flickr page, NASA explains: “A still camera on a sound trigger captured this intriguing photo of an airborne frog as NASA’s…