NASA

Very demure. Very cutesy. Very mindful. ⁣ ⁣ That’s how Saturn’s inner rings shine in diffused, scattered light as @NASASolarSystem ’s Cassini spacecraft looks on the planet’s night side. The southern hemisphere is lit by sunlight reflecting off the rings, while the north portion shines much more feebly in the dim light that filters through the rings and is scattered on the top half of the planet.⁣ ⁣ See how Saturn glows even when it’s not directly in daylight? Very considerate, very approachable, very demure.⁣ ⁣ There may be only one star in our solar system, but everyone gets a chance to glow, ladies.⁣ ⁣ Image description: The planet takes up the left side of the image, while its rings glow in shades of gold along the right side. The rings appear dim nearest to the planet, gradually becoming bolder near the center of the rings and fade out back into faint along the outer edges. ⁣ ⁣ Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute⁣ ⁣ #NASA #SolarSystem #Saturn #Rings #Planet #Demure #Cassini #Space

Watashi wa star ✨ This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust that looks a little like a caterpillar is a newborn star – a protostar. Stars form in large clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds. These massive clouds are cold and clump up. Eventually, gravity causes some of these clumps to collapse. When this happens, friction causes the material to heat up, eventually leading to the creation of a protostar. A protostar hasn’t yet developed the energy-generating capabilities of a star like the Sun, which fuses hydrogen into helium in its core. Instead, a protostar’s energy comes from the heat released created by that initial collapse. In time, the protostar will develop the ability to generate energy like other Sun-like stars. Image description: Many golden stars stud the darkness of space. Some of the stars have four diffraction spikes. At the center is a long, bright blue cloud of gas and dust with a bright core. Credit: NASA, @europeanspaceagency , and the @nasahubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) #NASA #Stars #Space #Creation #Hubble

We think the apple's rotten right to the core 🍏 The eerie glow of a dead star, which exploded long ago in a supernova, reveals itself in this @NASAHubble image of the Crab Nebula. But don't be fooled: the ghoulish-looking object still has a pulse. Buried at the center is the star's tell-tale heart, which beats with rhythmic precision. The "heart" is the crushed core of the exploded star. Known as a neutron star, it has the same mass as the Sun, but is squeezed into an ultra-dense sphere that is only a few miles across. The tiny powerhouse is the bright star-like object in the center of the image. Image description: Swirls of bright green hues fill this view of space. In the center, the bright “heart” of the Crab Nebula can be seen. Stars dot the sky in the distance. Credit: NASA and ESA #NASA #Space #Astronomy #Hubble #CrabNebula #Green #BratSummer #Brat

Swipe for a cosmic spider 🕸️ Our orbiting @NASAHubble telescope caught this glimpse of the Red Spider Nebula, a planetary nebula 3,000 light-years from Earth. It can be found in the constellation of Sagittarius. The Red Spider Nebula harbors one of the hottest stars known, which heats the gas around it to form shockwaves 62 billion miles (100 billion km) high. These waves form the spider-leg-like arcs in this image, with the star resembling a black widow's hourglass at the center. Image description: Orange waves of hot gas, resembling the curved legs of a black widow spider, surround a pinkish glowing core in this image of a planetary nebula. The background is spotted with white points of light. Credit: @europeanspaceagency / Garrelt Mellema (Leiden University, the Netherlands) #NASA #Space #Universe #Astrophotography #Spider

As Earth turns, so do we. 🌍 Take a moment to reflect on life as it is at this moment while enjoying this time-lapse from the International Space Station. The @iss ’s solar arrays reflect auroras and city lights as they align themselves with the Milky Way above for the approaching sunrise. Because the Moon was not in view during the night portions of the crew’s orbits, the main belt of the Milky Way was bright enough for astronaut Matthew Dominick to photograph—with the aurora glowing just before sunrise. @NASAAstronauts aboard the International Space Station orbit Earth about once every 90 minutes, which means they have many opportunities to spot sunrises like this from space. Video credit: NASA/Matthew Dominick Audio credit: London Contemporary Orchestra/Universal #NASA #SpaceStation #ISS #Earth #TimeLapse #EarthFromSpace #MilkyWay #Aurora #Reflections

Saturn’s face card never declines 💅⁣ ⁣ A softly-hued Saturn is embraced by the shadows of its stately rings in this image, obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2005. Cassini’s wide-angle camera captured the gas giant from approximately 621,000 miles (999,000 kilometers) away, as the spacecraft cruised a few degrees above the ring plane.⁣ ⁣ This color image approximates the view as it would appear to the human eye. The view was brightened to show additional detail in the rings and within their shadows.⁣ ⁣ Saturn’s subtle shift from gold to blue, going towards the north pole is a striking visual effect that scientists don’t fully understand. It may be related to seasonal patterns, tied to cold temperatures as Saturn’s northern hemisphere goes through winter.⁣ ⁣ Image description: Saturn is pictured on the left side of the image, which gradually turns from shades of blue to gold near the center. Rings are pictured on the lower half side, and their shadows are pictured on the top half of the image.⁣ ⁣ Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute⁣ ⁣ #NASA #Space #Universe #Cassini #SolarSystem #Saturn #Rings

September is a super month for skywatching! Five different planets, from Mercury to Saturn, will be visible in the night sky at different parts of the month. If you're looking for something a little closer to home, though, you're in luck: not only is this month's full moon a supermoon, but skywatchers in the Americas, Europe, and Africa will be able to see a partial lunar eclipse on the night of Sept. 17! Looking to learn more about the Moon? Join us on Saturday, Sept. 14, as we celebrate International Observe the Moon Night: https://moon.nasa.gov/observe Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Thumbnail credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky #NASA #Space #Universe #Skywatcher #Skywatching #Moon #Supermoon #LunarEclipse #ObserveTheMoon

Sometimes you need to eat an entire stream of dust thousands of light-years long.⁣ ⁣ Let us show you the best way to do it! In these images from our retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy consumes streams of gas and dust. ⁣ ⁣ As supermassive black holes “eat,” material heats up just before it falls in, creating incredible light shows — sometimes brighter than an entire galaxy full of stars. But the black hole at the center of Andromeda (one of our nearest galactic neighbors) is a “quiet” eater, meaning that the little light it emits does not vary significantly in brightness. This suggests that it is consuming a small but steady flow of material, rather than large clumps. ⁣ ⁣ Launched in 2003 and managed by @NASAJPL , Spitzer studied the universe in infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes. Different wavelengths reveal different features of Andromeda, including hotter sources of light, like stars, and cooler sources, like dust. ⁣ ⁣ And MSG, obviously.⁣ ⁣ Image description: A two-slide image of the Andromeda galaxy. The spiral galaxy churns against the blackness of space, dotted with hundreds of faraway stars of varying brightness. The tendrils of the spiral glow orange and red and swirl toward the center, where a bright, blue orb glows softly. ⁣ ⁣ Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech⁣ ⁣ #SupermassiveBlackHole #Andromeda #NASASpitzer #SpaceTelescope #SpiralGalaxy #Astrophotography #Galaxy #Space #Stars #Cucumber

Ultraviolet neighbors ✨ The Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way: it's "only" 210,000 light-years away. (For comparison, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across.) Nestled within the Small Magellanic Cloud is this spectacular star cluster, which is unleashing light and energy into the nebula surrounding it. This photo from our orbiting @NASAHubble telescope combines observations of the star cluster in ultraviolet and visible light; these blazing blue stars are giving off UV rays which are then picked up by Hubble's delicate instruments. Studying this star cluster in ultraviolet is helping scientists learn how the birth of stars shapes the interstellar space around them. Image description: A dark brown, cosmic cloud is studded by a collection of bluish-purple stars. Dozens of these stars are scattered throughout the scene, but they are most dense in the bottom half of the image. Other much smaller stars and galaxies, points of light in various colors, fill the background of the image. Credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Murray (Space Telescope Science Institute); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) #NASA #Universe #Space #Astronomy #Astrophotography #Stars #Nebula #Hubble #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors

Stellar Soup of the Day⁣ ⁣ The cosmic concoction @NASAWebb has spotted here is a nebula in the Perseus molecular cloud, located approximately 960 light-years away.⁣ ⁣ Webb’s sensitive scopes can reveal cosmic objects with extremely low masses. Some of the faintest “stars” in the picture are, in fact, newly born free-floating brown dwarfs with masses comparable to those of giant planets. The gas and dust that surround these young stars are part of the ingredients that may eventually produce planetary systems.⁣ ⁣ This is not a new recipe. Like the young stars in this image, our own Sun and planets formed inside a dusty molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago. Our Sun didn’t form by itself: it was part of a cluster much more massive than the nebula seen here. Observing nebulae like this one gives us the opportunity to understand stars like our Sun, as well as brown dwarfs and free-floating planets in their beginning stages.⁣ ⁣ Image description: A nebula made up of cloudy gas and dust resembling soft and wispy clouds and, in the center, thin and highly-detailed layers pressed close together. Large, bright stars surrounded by six long points of light dot the image, as well as some small, point-like stars embedded in the clouds. The clouds are lit up in blue close to the stars; orange colors show clouds that glow in infrared light.⁣ ⁣ Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Scholz, K. Muzic, A. Langeveld, R. Jayawardhana⁣ ⁣ #NASA #Space #Webb #JWST #Telescope #Nebula #Stars #Astronomy

Our home planet has some extreme environments – and studying those places can help us in the search for extraterrestrial life. Our new documentary series, Our Alien Earth, follows NASA scientists into the field as they explore the Icelandic lava fields, the wilderness of Greenland, and underwater volcanoes off the coast of Santorini, Greece. There, they test technologies that directly inform NASA missions to detect and discover extraterrestrial life in the universe. Episode 3, available now on NASA+, takes us to those Greek undersea volcanoes with Dr. Richard Camilli, his team, and a suite of autonomous underwater vehicles. The team hopes to give their robotic explorers the same scientific reasoning of a human astrobiologist, helping us characterize alien oceans and remotely search for signs of life on distant ocean worlds. Credit: NASA/Mike Toillion #NASA #Earth #Explore #Santorini #Volcano #Robots #Astrobiology

C is for craters, that's good enough for me 👀 On Oct. 12, 2012, our MESSENGER spacecraft captured this targeted observation of a small area of Mercury's surface, where two smaller craters on the rim of a larger crater resemble a pair of eyes. MESSENGER was first spacecraft to visit Mercury in 30 years, and the first ever to orbit. The spacecraft mapped the entire planet, discovered abundant water ice in shadows at the poles, and unlocked knowledge about Mercury's geology and magnetic field. The mission spent a little over four years orbiting Mercury, sending back nearly 300,000 photographs and a wealth of information from its instruments. MESSENGER's mission came to an end on April 30, 2015. The planet Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's Moon, and has a solid, cratered surface. It's the fastest planet in our solar system – traveling through space at nearly 29 miles (47 kilometers) per second. Mercury has the shortest year of all the planets in our solar system, just 88 days. For more facts about the smallest planet in our solar system, visit: science.nasa.gov/mercury Image description: A closeup image of a barren planetary surface dotted with craters. A large impact crater takes up most of the image with two smaller-sized craters side by side at the top center of its rim, such that it looks like a face with two eyes. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington #Mercury #FacesInPlaces #SolarSystem #NASA #Craters