VIMOS’s Last Embrace

#BlackHistoryMonth #tbt: Being the first African American woman to travel to space is one of Mae Jemison’s many accomplishments. A dancer, Peace Corps doctor, public speaker and astronaut, Mae went to college at age 16, holds 9 honorary doctorates and has founded many STEM-related programs for students. 

Aurora and Manicouagan Crater from the Space Station : How many of these can you find in today’s featured photograph: an aurora, airglow, one of the oldest impact craters on the Earth, snow and ice, stars, city lights, and part of the International Space Station? Most of these can be identified by their distinctive colors. The aurora here appears green at the bottom, red at the top, and is visible across the left of image. Airglow appears orange and can be seen hovering over the curve of the Earth. The circular Manicouagan Crater in Canada, about 100 kilometers across and 200 million years old, is visible toward the lower right and is covered in white snow and ice. Stars, light in color, dot the dark background of space. City lights appear a bright yellow and dot the landscape. Finally, across the top, part of the International Space Station (ISS) appears mostly tan. The featured image was taken from the ISS in 2012. via NASA

If you were on the moon during a lunar eclipse and you looked back at the Earth, you would see it surrounded by the red ring of the sun behind it. You’d be looking at every sunset and every sunrise on Earth at the same time.

The little-known nebula IRAS 05437+2502 billows out among the bright stars and dark dust clouds that surround it in this striking image from the Hubble Space Telescope [2001 x 1654]

NGC 6302- The Butterfly Nebula

Spirit sends one of those pictures that looks like it could come from the red rock deserts of the American West, but actually shows part of the landscape in Gusev crater, a mere 60 million miles away. Credit: NASA

The dune field at the center of Victoria Crater, seen in a new false-color shot. Credit: NASA

The Wow! signal. 

A signal sequence that lasted for 72 seconds in 1977 but has never been seen again. The signal appeared to come from a globular cluster in the Sagittarius constellation, but to this day no definite answer for where the signal originated can be given.  

Details of the Omega Nebula image credit: European Southern Observatory

Any minute now, NASA’s Juno will be entering Jupiter’s orbit. So here is a photo of an aurora on Jupiter.

This is Pluto as never seen before in human history.