A Reddit User Captured Several Phenomenal Photos Of The Solar Eclipse, From The Cockpit Of An Airplane.

T-51 days (October 14) - OA-4 Cygnus service module arrives at KSC Marking a major milestone in its prelaunch processing flow, the service module for the Cygnus spacecraft’s return to flight arrived at Kennedy Space Center earlier this week. The pressurized cargo module for the OA-4 mission arrived at Kennedy in early August, and technicians have been checking out the module ahead of cargo stowing. OA-4 marks a significant shift in the Cygnus program, not just because it is the spacecraft’s return to flight, but also the first flight of the Enhanced Cygnus. The cargo module is 3.9 feet longer than the initial Standard Cygnus, allowing the spacecraft to transport over 3,300 extra pounds of cargo. The Service Module also boasts new Orbital ATK-made Ultraflex solar arrays, which are lighter than the original rectangular arrays made by DutchSpace. The image below shows a comparison between the two versions of the spacecraft, with the Enhanced Cygnus on the right.

Final assembly and cargo stowage is expected to occur in late October and early November. Encapsulation inside an Atlas V 400-series payload fairing will occur in mid November, followed by rollout to SLC-41 and vehicle integration in late November. Currently, the launch of OA-4 is scheduled for December 3, though that date may move up or be pushed back depending on various factors. It will be the first flight of the spacecraft since an October 29, 2014 launch failure that destroyed the spacecraft and subsequently grounded the program. The enhanced Antares 200 rocket is undergoing final integration and assembly at Wallops Island, Virginia, and Orbital ATK teams are preparing for a period of pad testing. The next flight of Cygnus on an Antares is scheduled for some time in the first half of 2016. Until then, Orbital ATK purchased two Atlas V 401 rockets to launch their enhanced Cygnus spacecraft; these missions are designated OA-4 and OA-5. The second flight is slated for sometime in spring of 2016.

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Thanks, Doc

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Ten Awe-Inspiring Photos

We’ve taken 10 of our top Instagram posts and put them here for your viewing pleasure. Now, your next 10 cell phone backgrounds can be found in one place.

10. Water on Mars

With 210,000 likes, this image is a favorite on Instagram. New findings from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Dark, narrow streaks on Martian slopes such as these at Hale Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on contemporary Mars. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field.

9. Smoke Ring for a Halo

With 210,000 likes, this image shined on Instagram. Two stars shine through the center of a ring of cascading dust in this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The star system is named DI Cha, and while only two stars are apparent, it is actually a quadruple system containing two sets of binary stars. As this is a relatively young star system it is surrounded by dust.

8. Pluto’s Largest Moon, Charon

With 216,000 likes, a lot of people thought this image was interesting on Instagram. Our New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon - and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history. This high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon was captured just before closest approach on July 14. The image combines blue, red and infrared images; the colors are processed to best highlight the variation of surface properties across Charon.

7. Veil Nebula

With 220,000 likes, many people favorited this image  on Instagram. This is the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. This view is a mosaic of six pictures from our Hubble Space Telescope of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure. This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun.

6. Messier 94 Galaxy

With 234,000 likes, this image is a favorite on Instagram. This image shows the galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring or starburst ring around Messier 94, new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it.

5. Solar ‘Pumpkin’

With 247,000 likes, many followers enjoyed this image on Instagram. This photo was posted on Halloween and shows active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face. The image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in October 2014, which watches the sun at all times from its orbit in space.

4. Italy from the International Space Station

With 251,000 likes, this image captivated many of you on Instagram. Before drifting off to sleep, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) captured this images from the International Space Station and wrote, “ Day 180. Moonlight over Italy. #BuonaNotte Good night from @ISS! #YearInSpace.”

3. Cosmic Archaeological Dig

With 286,000 likes, this image dazzled many of you on Instagram. Peering deep into the Milky Way’s crowded central hub of stars, researchers using our Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered for the first time a population of ancient white dwarfs – smoldering remnants of once-vibrant stars that inhabited the core. Finding these relics at last can yield clues to how our galaxy was built, long before Earth and our sun formed. This image is a small section of Hubble’s view of the dense collection of stars crammed together in the galactic bulge.

2. Super Blood Moon

With 310,000 likes, this image was very popular on Instagram. It shows the Super Blood Moon behind the Washington Monument on Sunday, Sept. 27, in Washington, DC. The combination of a supermoon and total lunar eclipse last occurred in 1982 and will not happen again until 2033.

1. Pluto

With 363,000 likes, this image is one of our most popular pictures on Instagram. The dwarf planet sent a love note back to Earth via our New Horizons spacecraft, which traveled more than 9 years and 3+ billion miles. This was the last and most detailed image of Pluto sent to Earth before the moment of closest approach, which was at 7:49 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 14 - about 7,750 miles above the surface – roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India - making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

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Milky Way seen from the Moon, err, Death Valley [OC][3648x4713] http://space-pics.tumblr.com/