A turtle moves through a waterway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 4, 2017. The center shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. More than 330 native and migratory bird species, 25 mammals, 117 fishes, and 65 amphibians and reptiles call Kennedy and the wildlife refuge home. Image Credit: NASA/Bill White 2017年5月4日，佛罗里达州NASA肯尼迪航天中心，一只海龟在水道中穿梭。该中心与梅里特岛国家野生动物保护区接壤。肯尼迪野生动物保护区是330多种本地和候鸟、25种哺乳动物、117种鱼类和65种两栖动物和爬行动物的家园。 影像来源：NASA/Bill White
Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli captured this image of New Zealand, with its snow-capped Southern Alps mountain range pictured between the partly cloudy Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean, on Sept. 12, 2023. At the bottom right of the image, one of the International Space Station’s roll-out solar arrays is seen as the station orbited 271 miles above the island nation. Since the station became operational in November 2000, crew members have produced hundreds of thousands of images of the land, oceans, and atmosphere of Earth through Crew Earth Observations. These photographs record how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events. Image Credit: NASA / Jasmin Moghbeli 2023年9月12日，第69号远征队的飞行工程师贾斯敏·莫贝利拍摄了这张新西兰的照片，照片中白雪覆盖的南阿尔卑斯山脉位于部分多云的塔斯曼海和太平洋之间。在图片的右下角，国际空间站的一个太阳能电池阵列正在这个岛国上空271英里的轨道上运行。 自从国际空间站于2000年11月投入使用以来，工作人员已经通过对地观测拍摄了数十万张地球陆地、海洋和大气的照片。这些照片记录了由于人类活动和自然事件，地球是如何随着时间而变化。 影像来源：NASA / Jasmin Moghbeli
The Artemis II crew and teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program successfully completed on Sept. 20, the first in a series of integrated ground system tests at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for the upcoming mission around the Moon. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, practiced the procedures they will undergo on launch day, from putting on their Orion crew survival system spacesuits to traveling to the launch pad and up the mobile launcher, to prepare for their ride to space. Artemis II is the first crewed mission under Artemis and will test all of the Orion spacecraft’s systems with astronauts aboard before future missions to the Moon. Text credit:…
“We were a two-person shop doing comprehensive communications for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I won a whole ton of awards there alongside an amazing mentor and boss named Sandra Arnold. That’s why I stayed so long — because we were such a great team. That experience was very foundational to my federal career. “I found out in October 2013 that my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I called Sandra and told her what was going on, and she suggested I telework from San Antonio and take care of him. “So, I physically moved from my office in Galveston, Texas, back to my hometown of San Antonio and rented a home. My dad moved in with me, and sadly, he eventually passed…
沙克尔顿撞击坑的新拼接图 影像来源：Mosaic created by LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) and ShadowCam teams with images provided by NASA/KARI/ASU 沙克尔顿撞击坑的一幅新拼接图展示了两台月球轨道相机的力量，它们协同工作，揭示了月球南极地区前所未有的细节。 这幅拼接图是由2009年开始运行的月球侦查轨道器照相机（LROC）和2022年8月发射的韩国航空宇宙研究院（KARI）达努里（Danuri）航天器上搭载的NASA仪器ShadowCam拍摄的图像拼接而成。ShadowCam是由马林太空科学系统和亚利桑那州立大学开发。 LROC可以捕捉到月球表面的详细图像，但拍摄月球上从未受到阳光直射的阴影部分的能力有限，这些阴影部分被称为永久阴影区域。ShadowCam的感光度是LROC的200倍，可以在极低光照条件下成功运行，揭示LROC看不到的特征和地形细节。ShadowCam依靠月球地质特征或地球反射的阳光来拍摄阴影中的图像。 然而，ShadowCam的感光度使其无法拍摄到阳光直接照射的月球部分的图像，从而产生过曝的结果。每台相机都针对月球两极附近的特定照明条件进行了优化，分析人员可以将这两台仪器的图像结合起来，创建一张月球最亮和最暗部分的地形和地质特征的综合视觉地图。在这幅拼接图中，永久阴影区域，如沙克尔顿撞击坑的内部地面和峭壁，由于阴影相机的图像，可以如此详细地看到。相比之下，这幅拼接图中阳光照射的区域，比如撞击坑的边缘和侧面，是LROC收集的图像的产物。 有了ShadowCam，NASA可以比以前更详细地拍摄月球的永久阴影区域的图像，让科学家更好地观察月球南极区域。该地区从未被人类勘探过，由于被认为含有冰沉积物或其他冻结挥发物，因此对科学和勘探非常感兴趣。科学家们认为，月球上的冰层已经存在了数百万或数十亿年，研究样本的能力可以进一步加深我们对月球和太阳系如何演化的理解。冰沉积物也可以作为一种重要的勘探资源，因为它们由氢和氧组成，可以用于火箭燃料或生命支持系统。 月球南极地区更完整的地图对未来的表面探测工作很有价值，比如VIPER（挥发性物质极地探测车）和阿尔忒弥斯任务，这些任务将使人类重返月球表面，并在月球上建立长期存在。
“From an early age, I wanted to be an astronaut. I remember going to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center when I was 7 on a family trip, and we got to see the rockets in the Rocket Garden and learn all about the Moon landings. I had no idea that humanity had ever been in space, much less landed on the Moon. When my family moved from Colombia to the United States when I was 10 years old, I remember thinking, ‘Maybe I have an opportunity to work in the space industry when I get older now that I live here.’ “Back then, we didn’t have Google, so I went to the library because I wanted to find out, ‘How do you become an astronaut?’…
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NOAA-20 satellite captured this image of fragmented ice in Hudson Bay on June 28, 2023. The sea ice typically melts away between June and August, and the bay begins to freeze over again in late October or November. The ebb and flow of ice and its distribution play a vital role in the lives of many animals, especially polar bears. When there is ice in the bay, polar bears head out to hunt for ringed seals and other prey. When the ice melts, the bears retreat to shore, where they fast or feed on whatever bits of food they can find until the ice returns. Warm weather in early June 2023 accelerated…
Justin Hall lands the Dryden Remotely Operated Integrated Drone 2 (DROID 2) aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Aug. 22, 2023, as part of the Advanced Exploration of Reliable Operation at Low Altitudes: Meteorology, Simulation and Technology campaign. The data gathered by studying wind from the ground to 2,000 feet could improve the safety of takeoff and landing for future air taxis and improve weather forecasts. DROID 2, a fixed wing aircraft, acted as a wind sensor during the study. The remotely piloted drone, with its 10-foot wingspan, flew repeated passes at different predetermined altitudes. It completed the last flights for the campaign on Aug. 31. See more photos from the wind study. Image Credit: NASA/Steve Freeman 2023年8月22日，贾斯汀·霍尔将德莱顿远程操作集成无人机2 (DROID 2)飞机降落在NASA位于加利福尼亚州爱德华兹的阿姆斯特朗飞行研究中心，这是低空可靠操作高级探索：气象，模拟和技术活动的一部分。通过研究从地面到2,000英尺的风力收集数据可以提高未来空中出租车起飞和降落的安全性，并改善天气预报。…
In this image from July 24, 2023, astronaut Frank Rubio completes a session on the Surface Avatar Remote Control Terminal, which investigates how haptic controls, user interfaces, and virtual reality could command and control surface-bound robots from long distances. While aboard the International Space Station, Rubio has worked on several experiments involving robotics, space physics, and biology, and he participated in three spacewalks. On Sept. 11, 2023, Rubio surpassed NASA’s single spaceflight record of 355 continuous days in space made by astronaut Mark Vande Hei on March 30, 2022. NASA TV broadcast a prerecorded space-to-ground conversation Vande Hei had with Rubio on Sept. 5, when he congratulated the orbiting astronaut for his record-breaking mission. Rubio is set to return to Earth on Sept. 27, when…
A snowy egret, identifiable by its slender black bill, black legs and yellow feet, marches through a pond near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, looking for food in this image from March 29, 2007. This species inhabits salt marshes, ponds, rice field and shallow coastal bays from Maine to southern South America. They are also found in northern California, Texas, and Oklahoma. Kennedy shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which surrounds it; more than 330 native and migratory bird species live there. Image credit: NASA/Ken Thornsley 在这张2007年3月29日拍摄的照片中，一只雪白的白鹭，从它细长的黑色喙，黑色的腿和黄色的脚可以辨认出来，它正在寻找食物。该物种栖息于从缅因州到南美南部的盐沼，池塘，稻田和浅海岸海湾。加州北部、德克萨斯州和俄克拉何马州也有它们的身影。肯尼迪与环绕着它的梅里特岛国家野生动物保护区接壤；超过330种本地和候鸟生活在那里。 图片来源：NASA/Ken Thornsley
