Solarbeat

NASA astronaut films lightning from ISS

Astronaut Reid Wiseman posted a Vine from the International Space Station today showing lightning over Houston. Tornado warnings were issued in the Houston area earlier this afternoon but have since expired.

It’s easy to get lost in this Hubble image of NGC 339. Located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, it lies around 200,000 LY away. By measuring the brightnesses and colors of the stars of NGC 339, astronomers are able to estimate the age of the cluster at around 6.5 billion years old. In the background of this image, neighboring galaxies are revealed as fuzzy, extended blobs. Can you spot one? (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt)

The stunning Sombrero galaxy

js

The planet Saturn, brought to you by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Photographer Luc Jamet recently won astronomy photographer of the year for this gorgeous and eerie image of the total solar eclipse seen from the Norwegian territory of Svalbard on March 20, 2015.

Moon and Venus by frankastro

Charting the slow death of the Universe

Paris (SPX) Aug 12, 2015 The study, which is part of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, the largest multi-wavelength survey ever put together, involved many of the world’s most powerful telescopes [1]. “We used as many space and ground-based telescopes as we could get our hands on to measure the energy output of over 200 000 galaxies across as broad a wavelength range as possible,” says Simon Driver ICRA Full article

Astronauts talking about viewing the earth from the moon, from The Overview Effect: Awe and Self-Transcendent Experience in Space Flight

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]

Sunset on Mars taken May 19. 2005 by the NASA Spirit Rover