New Horizons Captures Images Of Water Ice And Blue Skies On Pluto    

The large space rock that will zip past Earth this Halloween is most likely a dead comet that, fittingly, bears an eerie resemblance to a skull.

These first radar images from the National Science Foundation’s 1,000-foot (305-meter) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, indicate the near-Earth object is spherical in shape and approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter. The radar images were taken on Oct. 30, 2015.

Scientists observing asteroid 2015 TB145 with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, have determined that the celestial object is more than likely a dead comet that has shed its volatiles after numerous passes around the sun.

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Image Credit: NAIC-Arecibo/NSF

Kennedy Space Center | by North Sky Photography

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Saturn V Cutaway ~ This fascinating Saturn V cutaway drawing is by far the most detailed I’ve ever come across. It’s an original, official Boeing engineering breakdown by Don Sprague and includes everything you ever wanted to know about the Saturn V’s internal workings – right down to millimetre accurate measurements … 

Six days into the Chemistry Advent Calendar! Missed any so far? Catch up here: http://www.compoundchem.com/2015advent/

spoopy

We’re With You When You Fly

Did you know that “We’re With You When You Fly”? Thanks to our advancements in aeronautics, today’s aviation industry is better equipped than ever to safely and efficiently transport millions of passengers and billions of dollars worth of freight to their destinations. In fact, every U.S. Aircraft flying today and every U.S. air traffic control tower uses NASA-developed technology in some way. Here are some of our objectives in aeronautics:

Making Flight Greener

From reducing fuel emissions to making more efficient flight routes, we’re working to make flight greener. We are dedicated to improving the design of airplanes so they are more Earth friendly by using less fuel, generating less pollution and reducing noise levels far below where they are today.

Getting you safely home faster

We work with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide air traffic controllers with new tools for safely managing the expected growth in air traffic across the nation. For example, testing continues on a tool that controllers and pilots can use to find a more efficient way around bad weather, saving thousands of pounds of fuel and an average of 27 minutes flying time per tested flight. These and other NASA-developed tools help get you home faster and support a safe, efficient airspace.

Seeing Aviation’s Future

Here at NASA, we’re committed to transforming aviation through cutting edge research and development. From potential airplanes that could be the first to fly on Mars, to testing a concept of a battery-powered plane, we’re always thinking of what the future of aviation will look like.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

You're walking in the woods. No one is around and your phone is dead. Out of the corner of your eye you spot her.

Poot Lovato

NASA just released thousands of high-res Apollo mission photos

The space research agency’s Project Apollo Archive made a massive update to its Flickr account Sunday, adding a trove of more than 8,000 photos taken during Moon missions from 1969 to 1972.

Photographs of Mars taken by the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, which has been orbiting the planet since September 2014.  Can you imagine our descendants colonizing this world?

NASA just released a brand new equirectangular projection of Jupiter, so I thought it would be fun to revisit the surface of some planetary bodies … IN CONTINUOUSLY LOOPING GIF FORM.

So here’s

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Earth’s moon

Mars

Jupiter

Ganymede (one of Jupiter’s moons)

Pluto

Credit: NASA/JPL, USGS