保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
2023年8月26日 Crescents of Venus Image Credit & Copyright: Roberto Ortu Explanation: Just as the Moon goes through phases, Venus’ visible sunlit hemisphere waxes and wanes. This sequence of telescopic images illustrates the steady changes for Venus during its recent 2023 apparition as our evening star. Gliding along its interior orbit between Earth a...
2023年8月25日 A Season of Saturn Image Credit & Copyright: Andy Casely Explanation: Ringed planet Saturn will be at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth’s skies, on August 27. While that puts the sixth planet from the Sun at its brightest and well-placed for viewing, its beautiful ring system isn’t visible to the unaided eye. Still, t...
A Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle awaits test-firing in the Redstone Test Stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in this photo from the late 1950s. Between 1953 and 1960, the rocket team at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville performed hundreds of test firings on the Redstone rocket – over 200 on the Mercury-Redstone vehicle co...
2023年8月24日 Meteors along the Milky Way Image Credit & Copyright: Ali Hosseini Nezhad Explanation: Under dark and mostly moonless night skies, many denizens of planet Earth were able to watch this year’s Perseid meteor shower. Seen from a grassy hillside from Shiraz, Iran these Perseid meteors streak along the northern summer Milky Way before dawn ...
In this image from July 18, 2023, a NASA team helps attach solar arrays for the agency’s Psyche spacecraft onto a stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The solar arrays are part of the solar electric propulsion system, provided by Maxar Technologies. They will power the spacecraft on its journey to explore...
2023年8月23日 The Meteor and the Galaxy Credit & Copyright: Jose Pedrero Explanation: It came from outer space. It — in this case a sand-sized bit of a comet nucleus — was likely ejected many years ago from Sun-orbiting Comet Swift-Tuttle, but then continued to orbit the Sun alone. When the Earth crossed through this orbit, the piece of comet d...
Gateway’s International Habitat (I-Hab) module, provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), is the focus of this rendered image from Aug. 18, 2023. I-Hab is one of two of the space station’s habitation modules along with HALO, the Habitation and Logistics Outpost. Astronauts will live, conduct research, and prepare for lunar surface missions ins...
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission is the seventh crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The crew members (Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, left, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, second from left, NASA astronaut Jasmin Mogh...
2023年8月22日 The Pistachio Nebula Credit & Copyright: Bray Falls & Chester Hall-Fernandez Explanation: This nebula had never been noted before. Newly discovered nebulas are usually angularly small and found by professionals using large telescopes. In contrast, the Pistachio Nebula was discovered by dedicated amateurs and, although faint, is nearly th...
2023年8月21日 Introducing Comet Nishimura Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett Explanation: Will Comet Nishimura become visible to the unaided eye? Given the unpredictability of comets, no one can say for sure, but it currently seems like a good bet. The comet was discovered only ten days ago by Hideo Nishimura during 30-second exposures with a standard digita...