breathtaking !

Explanation: This was just one more breathtaking view from the International Space Station. The Sun, a crescent Earth, and the long arm of a solar panel were all visible outside a window when the Space Shuttle Atlantis visited the orbiting outpost last week. Reflections from the window and hexagonal lens flares from the camera are superposed.

via antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

Explanation: Goodbye Earth. Earlier this month, ESA’s interplanetary Rosetta spacecraft zoomed past the Earth on its way back across the Solar System. Pictured above, Earth showed a bright crescent phase featuring the South Pole to the passing rocket ship. Launched from Earth in 2004, Rosetta used the gravity of the Earth to help propel it out past Mars and toward a 2014 rendezvous with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

via antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

Explanation: In the scene, recorded near the peak of the annual Leonid meteor shower (now subsiding) on November 17th, a meteor trails through the frigid predawn sky.

via antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

Gli asteroidi potenzialmente pericolosi per la Terra (PHA) per la loro traiettoria ora censiti sono 1079: il loro diametro è a partire da cento metri. Solo in questo mese di novembre ci sono undici asteroidi ben noti di questo tipo che arrivano ad una distanza tra 1,4 e 44,2 LD (Lunar Distance ) con diametri variabili tra 6 metri e 1,9 chilometri

From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini’s wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun’s disk was exactly overhead at the planet’s equator. The images were taken on Aug. 12, 2009, at a distance of approximately 847,000 km (526,000 mi) from Saturn. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Saturn at equinox - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Un oggetto “non ancora identificato”, probabilmente un meteorite, è precipitato dal cielo nel nord della Lettonia, scavando un cratere profondo 15 metri e largo 5. I vigili del fuoco intervenuti sul posto hanno riscontrato che non ci sono tracce di contaminazione chimica o radioattiva. L’oggetto è caduto nel pressi di una fattoria nel villaggio di Mazsalaca, per fortuna nel bel mezzo di un campo. Una squadra di geologi è al lavoro per stabilire con certezza che si sia trattato di un meteorite.

(via Lettonia, meteorite scava un cratere di 15 metri - Galleria - Repubblica.it

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Explanation: After undocking, the space shuttle Discovery crew got a memorable view of the developing International Space Station (ISS). Pictured orbiting high above Earth last month, numerous solar panels, trusses, and science modules of the ISS were visible.

via antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

Explanation: Few auroras show this level of detail. Above, a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta, Canada. With a shape reminiscent of a flower, the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail. The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.

via antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

The Moon’s shadow engulfed Taiwan and a large swath of southeastern China and the Pacific Ocean on the morning of July 22, 2009, during an unusually long total eclipse of the Sun. This pair of images from the Japanese geostationary satellite MTSAT show the view of Earth at 8:30 a.m. local time in Taiwan (left) and an hour later (right), near the time in eastern China when the disk of the Moon completely overlapped the disk of the Sun (called totality). The longest period of totality occurred over the Pacific, where the total eclipse lasted more than 6 minutes. (via Eclipse Shadows Southeastern China : Image of the Day

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Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark “scar” had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, this morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact (via New NASA Images Indicate Object Hits Jupiter - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Usa, i tre dell’Apollo 11 da Obama - Galleria - Repubblica.it

After the most famous voyage of modern times, it was time to go home. After proving that humanity has the ability to go beyond the confines of planet Earth, the first humans to walk on another world — Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin — flew the ascent stage of their Lunar Module back to meet Michael Collins in the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. Pictured above on 1969 July 21, the ascending spaceship was captured by Collins making its approach, with the Moon below, and Earth far in the distance. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the first human moon landing. Recently, NASA’s moon-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back the first pictures of most of the Apollo landing sites — including Apollo 11 — with enough resolution to see the Lunar Module descent stages left behind.

via apod.nasa.gov

That’s the Apollo 14 landing site, and you can see where the lunar surface was disturbed by the astronauts bootprints! Some of that may also be tracks from a wheelbarrow-like device called the Modularized Equipment Transporter which Alan Shepherd and Edgar Mitchell used to help them carry equipment and samples to and from the lander.

Wernher von Braun

The Domination of Space (1950s) (via Paleo-Future - Paleo-Future Blog - The Domination of Space (1950s)

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