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Happy Halloween From The Space Place!

In a dark conference room, a pumpkin gently landed on the Moon, its retrorockets smoldering, while across the room, a flying saucer pumpkin hovered above Area 51 as a pumpkin alien wreaked havoc.

Suffice to say that when the scientists and engineers at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, compete in a pumpkin-carving contest, the solar system’s the limit. Now in its ninth year, the contest gives teams only one hour to carve (off the clock, on their lunch break), though they can prepare non-pumpkin materials — like backgrounds, sound effects and motorized parts — ahead of time. 

Enjoy! 

Looking for more pumpkin fun? Check out the full gallery, here. 

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

St Constantine Ukranian Catholic Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Had to share this @WeHeartIt

Gosh, imagine how much harder it would be to stargaze and learn about the universe if we had THIS MONSTROSITY blocking out half of our sky!! Thank goodness we evolved where we did…

for crazy cat people with limited space

From Earthrise to the black hole: astronomy’s most famous images.

Photographs from history that capture humanity’s exploration of the heavens.

20 July 1969

One of the most iconic views of Earth, taken from the Apollo 11 spacecraft as it orbited the moon. Describing the scene, the astronaut Neil Armstrong said: ‘It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small’ | This caption was updated on 11 April 2019 to correct the date the picture was taken, photograph: Nasa.

21 July 1969

Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot for the first moon landing, poses on the lunar surface. The footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil. Neil Armstrong took the picture with a 70mm Hasselblad lunar surface camera Photograph: American Photo Archive/Alamy

25 February 1979

This dramatic view of Jupiter’s great red spot and its surroundings was obtained by the Voyager 1 space probe

Photograph: JPL/Nasa/UIG/Getty Images

14 February 1990

Often referred to as ‘the pale blue dot’ image, this picture was taken when Voyager 1 was 4bn miles (6.4bn km) from Earth and 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. Earth is a mere point of light, just 0.12 pixels in size when viewed from that distance. The fuzzy light is scattered sunlight because Earth was close to the sun (from the perspective of Voyager)

Photograph: JPL/Nasa

6 January 2004

The first colour image of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. It was the sharpest photograph ever taken on the surface of the planet

Photograph: JPL/Nasa/AP

25 September 2012

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, this photo was assembled by combining 10 years of Hubble space telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the centre of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, the telescope revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time

Photograph: Hubble space telescope/Nasa/ESA

24 July 2015

A combination of images captured by the New Horizons space probe, with enhanced colours to show differences in the composition and texture of Pluto’s surface

Photograph: AP

10 April 2019

The first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope (EHT) – a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape

Photograph: EHT Collaboration/UCL

Via David Peterson

Me: Sometimes I just feel frustrated and wonder if I am wasting my time.

Ben: St. Paul had to write two letters to the Corinthians.

Mood

Galilean moons Europa, Callisto, and Io pass in front of Jupiter. Photo of this rare triple-moon conjunction taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

js

a pair of chapel ceilings - both in wroclaw, poland