In a galaxy 100 light-years away in the constellation Dorado sits a planetary system named TOI 700. It is home to TOI 700 d, the first Earth-size habitable-zone planet discovered by TESS, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center 在离我们100光年的多拉多星系中，有一个名为TOI 700的行星系统。它是TOI 700d的家园，这是NASA凌日系外行星勘测卫星TESS发现的第一颗地球大小的适居带行星。 图片来源:NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
On Jan.1, 2020, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Making progress! The massive @NASA_SLS core stage is moving to Building 110 at the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana. There it will be readied for the Pegasus barge and its trip to @NASAStennis. Thank you to the @NASA team for working through the holidays!” NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit. The agency is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman and the next man, on the Moon by 2024. Through the agency’s Artemis lunar exploration program, we will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before. Image Credit: NASA/Jude L. Guidry 2020年1月1日，NASA局长吉姆·布莱恩斯汀在推特上写道：“取得进展！@NASA_SLS的大型核心阶段正在搬到路易斯安那州米却德装配厂的110号楼。那里将为飞马驳船及其旅行做好准备 @NASAStennis。感谢@NASA团队在假期期间的工作！”…
This smattering of celestial sequins is a spiral galaxy named NGC 4455, located in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair). This might sound like an odd name for a constellation — and in fact it is somewhat unusual. It’s the only modern constellation to be named in honor of a real person from history: Queen Berenice II of Egypt. The story of Queen Berenice II is an interesting one. A ruling queen of the ancient Greek city of Cyrene in modern-day Libya, and later a queen of Ptolemaic Egypt through her marriage to her cousin Ptolemy III Euergetes, Berenice became known for sacrificing locks of her hair as an offering to ensure her husband’s safe return from battle. Her husband did indeed return…
Stars glitter in the night sky above the Earth’s atmospheric glow, as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the Earth as it was about to cross over the Caspian Sea. Image Credit: NASA 国际空间站即将穿过里海，围绕地球260英里的上空运行，在地球大气辉光的上方，星星在夜空中闪烁。 影像来源：NASA
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, which only features objects that were visible from Charles Messier’s viewing location in Europe, Moore’s Caldwell catalog includes celestial bodies that are found in both the northern and southern skies. The catalog consists of 46 star clusters, 35 galaxies and 28 nebulas. Moore intentionally avoided including any of the Messier objects in his catalog, hoping to expand his fellow amateur astronomers’ cosmic horizons. From nearby clouds of gas and dust…
NASA astronaut Christina Koch makes observations from the International space Station’s cupola. Koch has already made history once in her stay aboard the orbital laboratory. In October 2019 she was part of the first all-female spacewalk and now she is poised to make history again. On Dec. 28, 2019, she will break the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, when she surpasses former Station Commander Peggy Whitson’s record. When she arrives back on Earth in February 2020, she will have spent more than 300 days in space. In this image from September 2019, Koch wrote on twitter: “#TBT to when Cygnus was docked and @AstroHague and I practiced for capturing Dragon by piloting the @Space_Station robotic arm. Soon we will capture the…
The Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco formed as a result of the collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates about 80 million years ago. This collision destroyed the Tethys Ocean. The limestone, sandstone, claystone and gypsum layers that formed the ocean bed were folded and crumpled to create the Anti-Atlas Mountains. In this image of southwest Morocco, visible, near infrared and short wavelength infrared bands are combined to dramatically highlight the different rock types, and illustrate the complex folding. The image was acquired on November 5, 2007, by the ASTER instrument on the Terra satellite. Terra launched 20 years ago in December 1999, beginning a new era in the study of Earth. Terra, flagship of the agency’s Earth Observing System, was built to last for…
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 the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the “Snowflake Cluster.” Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or “protostars.” At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to “crawl” away from their location of…
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows IC 2051, a galaxy in the southern constellation of Mensa (the Table Mountain) lying about 85 million light-years away. It is a spiral galaxy, as evidenced by its characteristic whirling, pinwheeling arms, and it has a bar of stars slicing through its center. This galaxy was observed for a Hubble study on galactic bulges, the bright round central regions of spiral galaxies. Spiral galaxies like IC 2051 are shaped a bit like flying saucers when seen from the side; they comprise a thin, flat disk, with a bulky bulge of stars in the center that extends above and below the disk. These bulges are thought to play a key role in how galaxies evolve, and to…
This week in 1999, space shuttle Discovery, mission STS-103, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the third Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Over the course of three planned extravehicular activities, the STS-103 crew restored Hubble to working order and upgraded some of its systems, allowing the then decade-old observatory to get ready to begin its second scheduled decade of astronomical observations. Hubble was released from Discovery’s cargo bay Dec. 24. Here, astronauts Michael Foale and Claude Nicollier install a Fine Guidance Sensor into a protective enclosure in the shuttle’s payload bay. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities…
