保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
Katherine Johnson passed away Feb. 24, 2020, after living a life filled with trail-blazing achievements. Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of the breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johns...
2020 February 2 Zeta Oph: Runaway Star Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope Explanation: Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the S...
During the 18th century, French astronomer Charles Messier compiled a list of over 100 cosmic objects that might fool fellow comet hunters into thinking they had discovered new comets. In the 1980s, an Englishman named Sir Patrick Moore produced an additional list to highlight more cosmic wonders visible to amateur astronomers. Unlike the Messier catalog, wh...
2019 December 31 M33: The Triangulum Galaxy Image Credit & Copyright: Rui Liao Explanation: The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies...
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the so-called Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center and appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles th...
2019 December 15 Mammatus Clouds over Nebraska Image Credit & Copyright: Jorn Olsen Photography Explanation: When do cloud bottoms appear like bubbles? Normally, cloud bottoms are flat. This is because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a specific temperature, which usually corresponds to a very specific height. As ...
2019 November 18 Passing Asteroid Arrokoth Video Credit: NASA, JHU APL, SwRI Explanation: What would it look like to pass asteroid Arrokoth? The robotic New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past Arrokoth in January, 3.5 years after the spacecraft passed Pluto. If this object’s name doesn’t sound familiar, that may be because the distant, double-lobed, ...
2019 November 12 NGC 3717: A Nearly Sideways Spiral Galaxy Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Processing: D. Rosario Explanation: Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can be appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NG...
A student from Sinte Gleska University, an accredited tribal university on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, works to build a model rover for a NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) rover competition at the 2018 American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Student Conference. View the Native American Heritage Month gallery. Ten Ways to Celebra...
This week in 1967, the Apollo 4 mission launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The mission marked the first launch of the Saturn V rocket. Mission objectives included testing of structural integrity, compatibility of rocket and spacecraft, heat shield and thermal seal integrity, overall reentry operations, launch loads and dynamic characteristics, stage ...