Stellarium Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 April 15 Mercury and Crescent Moon Set Image Credit & Copyright: Miguel Claro (TWAN, Dark Sky Alqueva) Explanation: Innermost planet Mercury and a thin crescent Moon are never found far from the Sun in planet Earth's skies. Tomorrow's picture: Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important NoticesA service of:ASD at NASA / GSFC& Michigan Tech. Wallpaper Videos See the universe come to life via animations, scientific visualizations, expert commentary, and more.
The Telescope - Team Hubble Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the Space Telescope Operations Control Center for Hubble. Gathering images from space is more than a "point and shoot" proposition. The Hubble Space Telescope explores our universe 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Operating and maintaining such a tireless observatory and converting its raw data (digital signals) into images requires considerable effort from the people on the ground. Operating Hubble Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and technicians — at both NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) — bear the collective responsibility for operating the Hubble Space Telescope and for monitoring its health, safety, and performance. Hubble mission operations fall into two categories: Engineering operations, which test and maintain the Hubble spacecraft's overall performance. Hubble's Ground Control Flight Operations All of the Hubble Space Telescope's activities are controlled by people on the ground.
Weekend Feature: NASA-ESA Announce Europa Mission -Search for Life on Jupiter's Water Worlds With input from scientists around the world, American and European scientists working on the potential next new mission to the Jupiter system have announced their joint vision for the Europa Jupiter System Mission to explore "the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants." The proposed Europa Jupiter System Mission would provide orbiters around two of Jupiter's moons: a NASA orbiter around Europa called the Jupiter Europa Orbiter, and an ESA orbiter around Ganymede called the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter. "We've reached hands across the Atlantic to define a mission to Jupiter's water worlds," said Bob Pappalardo, the pre-project scientist for the proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The new reports integrate goals that were being separately developed by NASA and ESA working groups into one unified strategy. Most scientists believe that the subEuropan seas are locked under tens of kilometers of ice. The Daily Galaxy via NASA/JPL
NASA spacecraft due for rendezvous with comet Tempel 1 It's not exactly young love, but some might find it romantic. On Valentine's Day, an aging Lothario that has been flitting from beauty to beauty through the solar system will make his final stop, taking pictures of a battered dowager to send to the folks back home before disappearing forever. The Stardust spacecraft, which has already taken images of asteroid Annefrank and captured interstellar dust from comet Wild 2, on Monday night will swing by comet Tempel 1. There, it will take new pictures of the devastation wrought on the comet by NASA's 2005 Deep Impact mission. In that historic encounter six years ago, the Deep Impact spacecraft released an 820-pound probe that crashed into Tempel 1 at 23,000 mph, sending a luminous plume of debris into space and allowing researchers to determine what the comet was made of. Now, Stardust will be able to obtain images of that crater up close for the first time. The encounter is expected to begin about 8:30 p.m.
WebStars: Astrophysics in Cyberspace This list of astronomical resource sites is intended as a resource for users who have a general interest in astronomical topics. For a translation of any acronyms you may have seen in our pages check out our acronyms page. In the News Read the latest NASA news! The Solar System Planetary Exploration The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has information on missions around the solar system: past, present, future, and proposed. The SOHO gallery SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) is a joint NASA/ESA mission to study the Sun during the quiet portion of the solar cycle. Project Galileo Galileo is a space probe to Jupiter, whose mission ended in September 2003. The Cassini Mission Cassini is a space probe to Saturn launched in October, 1997. New Horizons The Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission will help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon a "double planet" system and the last in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. Mars
Latest Mars Weather Captioned Image Release No. MSSS-321 — 16 April 2014 Martian weather between 7 April 2014 and 13 April 2014: The MARCI acquires a global view of the red planet and its weather patterns every day. Local dust storms were observed in Solis, Aonia, and west of Syrtis. This week’s MARCI “movie” can be downloaded HERE (9.1 MB .mov file). Earlier Mars Weather Reports are available HERE. About the Quicktime Movie: The movie (a .mov file that you can click and play, above) was generated from images obtained by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Citation and CreditThe image(s) and caption are value-added products. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems —or— NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS To cite the image(s) and caption information in a paper or report: Malin, M.
SpaceWeather