Astronauts snag care package, get set to monitor crises below from on high

Astronauts snag care package, get set to monitor crises below from on high

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION , Steve Swanson, Expedition 39 Crew, NASA] In mid-April, the International Space Station captured the unmanned SpaceX Dragon capsule sent to resupply the orbiting outpost. Pictured above, the station’s Canadarm2 had just grabbed the commercial spaceship. The Dragon capsule was filled with over 5000 lbs (2260 kilos) of supplies […]

Cluster of 10 million stars: Part of Milky Way or its own galaxy?

Cluster of 10 million stars: Part of Milky Way or its own galaxy?

[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION CLICK ON IMAGE,CEDIC Team, Processing – Christoph Kaltseis] Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139, is some 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter, the largest and brightest of 200 or […]

Bryce Canyon glory in heaven and on earth

Bryce Canyon glory in heaven and on earth

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Dave Lane] Sometimes land and sky are both busy and beautiful. The landscape pictured in the foreground encompasses Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA, famous for its many interesting rock structures eroded over millions of years. The skyscape above, photogenic in its own right, encompasses the arching central disk […]

Looking back to the sun from distant Neptune

Looking back to the sun from distant Neptune

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Data – Voyager 2, NASA Planetary Data System] Cruising through the outer solar system, the Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Neptune on August 25, 1989, the only spacecraft to visit the most distant gas giant. Based on the images recorded during its close encounter and in […]

Cosmic cherry tree from space mystifies Japanese priests, researchers

Cosmic cherry tree from space mystifies Japanese priests, researchers

A cosmic mystery is uniting monks and scientists in Japan after a tree grown from a cherry stone that orbited the Earth for eight months bloomed years earlier than expected — and with very surprising flowers. The four-year-old sapling — grown from a cherry pit that spent time onboard the International Space Station (ISS) — […]

Four red ‘blood moons’ starting next week seen as beginning of the ‘End’, second coming

Four red ‘blood moons’ starting next week seen as beginning of the ‘End’, second coming

Mars, Earth, and the Sun [were to have aligned last night], a rare ‘opposition of the planets’ that only happens once every 778 days. But what makes this so remarkable is that it comes precisely a week before everyone on earth will see the first of FOUR dark red ‘blood moons’, an extraordinary event some […]

The center of our galaxy as viewed from Chile at dawn

The center of our galaxy as viewed from Chile at dawn

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Babak Tafreshi (TWAN), ESO Ultra HD Expedition As dawn broke on March 27, the center of the Milky Way Galaxy stood almost directly above the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory. In the dry, clear sky of Chile’s Atacama desert, our galaxy’s dusty central bulge is flanked by Paranal’s four […]

‘Cosmos’ had millions of watchers but detractors hit its ‘faith in evolution’

‘Cosmos’ had millions of watchers but detractors hit its ‘faith in evolution’

“Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, if the first segment is any indication, will attempt to package unconditional blind faith in evolution as scientific literacy in an effort to create interest in science,” wrote a blogger for Answers in Genesis, a Christian apologetics ministry that promotes the view that the universe, our planet, and its inhabitants came […]

Martian life in hole? Missile silo?

Martian life in hole? Missile silo?

What created this unusual hole in Mars? The hole was discovered by chance in 2011 on images of the dusty slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars.   The hole appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated on […]