Orion rises over the Earth’s atmosphere in this snapshot from the International Space Station. The belt stars, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka run right to left and Orion's sword, home to the great Orion Nebula, hangs above his belt, an orientation unfamiliar to denizens of the planet's northern hemisphere. #stars #iss #funfactfriday
Tags: ISS space exploration
How was this picture taken? Usually, pictures of the shuttle, taken from space, are snapped from the space station and pictures of the space station are snapped from the shuttle. How, then, can there be a picture of both the shuttle and the station together, taken from space? The answer is that during the Space Shuttle Endeavour's last trip to the International Space Station in May 2011, a supply ship departed the station with astronauts that captured a series of rare views. The supply ship was the Russian Soyuz TMA-20 which landed in Kazakhstan later that day. #space #nasa #iss #funfactfriday
Tags: #funfactfriday Shuttle International Space Station Station Research
Closeup view of the chimpanzee "Ham", the live test subject for Mercury-Redstone 2 test flight being fed an apple. Also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, Ham was a chimpanzee and the first Hominidae launched into space, in January 1961, as part of America's space program. Ham's name is an acronym for the lab which prepared him for his historic mission — the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base. After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Enjoy!
Tags: #funfactfriday NASA Marshall Space Flight Center MSFC Mercury
The Trifid Nebula is easy to find with a small telescope, a well-known stop in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. This penetrating infrared image reveals filaments of glowing dust clouds and newborn stars. The spectacular false-color view is courtesy of the Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers use the Spitzer infrared image data to count newborn and embryonic stars which otherwise can lie hidden in the natal dust and gas clouds of this intriguing stellar nursery. The Trifid Nebula is about 30 light-years across and lies only 5,500 light-years away. #cosmos #space #stars #nasa #funfactfriday
Tags: #funfactfriday nasa Marshall Space Flight Center nebula
What looks like a bizarre alien planet is in fact Earth, photographed by astronaut Scott Kelly aboard the International Space Station during the auroral displays this past June. Aurorae have the signature colors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densities found at extreme altitudes. The greenish glow of molecular oxygen dominates this view. But higher, just above the space station's horizon, is a rarer red band of aurora from atomic oxygen. #iss #spacestation #funfactfriday
Tags: #funfactfriday NASA International Space Station Marshall Space Flight Center Aurora Borealis