保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
While observing the outer region of the Milky Way galaxy, our Spitzer Telescope captured this infrared image of a cloud of gas and dust that looks like the hollowed-out pumpkins we see every Halloween. Nicknamed the “Jack-o’-Lantern Nebula,” it was likely created by powerful outflows of radiation and particles from a massive O-type star, about 15 to 20 times...
On Oct. 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from 890,000 miles (1.4 million km) away. The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists. These Earth flybys provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Trojan asteroid...
This mosaic is composed of images covering the entire sky, taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) as part of WISE’s 2012 All-Sky Data Release. By observing the entire sky, WISE could search for faint objects, like distant galaxies, or survey groups of cosmic objects. Not visible to the human eye, infrared light is radiated by a plethora of c...
During its 40th close pass by Jupiter, our Juno spacecraft saw Ganymede cast a large, dark spot on the planet on Feb. 25, 2022. JunoCam captured this image from very close to Jupiter, making Ganymede’s shadow appear especially large. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops...
When a massive star collapsed in the Cassiopeia constellation, it generated a supernova explosion with some of the fastest shockwaves in the Milky Way. These speedy shock waves are one of the reasons the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova remnant was chosen to be our Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer’s (IXPE) first observed object. This composite image, made of...
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 members Jessica Watkins, Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Samantha Cristoforetti link arms for a portrait on Oct. 14, 2022, just before boarding the Dragon Freedom crew ship and undocking from the International Space Station. During their nearly six-month science expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory, the Crew-4 astronauts continued wo...
Our Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9 acquired this vibrant image of deciduous trees and conifers in the Adirondack Mountains in northeast New York on Oct. 8, 2022. Adirondack Park, the largest state park in the contiguous United States, puts on a reliable show of seasonal color. Deciduous trees with especially vivid hues include sugar and red maples, a...
After 170 days in orbit, NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti safely splashed down Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, completing the agency’s fourth commercial crew mission to the International Space Station. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels r...
“As first-generation immigrants we have to figure things out on our own a lot of times. My parents were going through the same transition [to America] that I was going through [in high school]. We didn’t have a lot of direction. In order for me to get to the path that I’m on today, I had to figure a lot of things out on my own. Because I had to do it to surv...
Expedition 67 flight engineers Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins are all smiles in this Sept. 12, 2022, image from the International Space Station cupola. The cupola is used to monitor the arrival of spaceships and to view the Earth. Hines, Watkins, Kjell Lindgren, and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will begin the return journey to Earth ...