Endeavour in LA
The space shuttle Endeavour is hoisted onto a wheeled transporter at Los Angeles International Airprt on Sept, 22, 2012, in preparation for its move to a display at the California Science Center. Endeavour was flown from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to LAX in California atop a modified 747 jumbo jet during a three-day, cross-country voyage.
Curiosity checks its belly
A mosaic of photos taken on Sept. 9 by the Mars Hand Lens Imager on NASA's Curiosity rover shows the underside of the rover and its six wheels, with Martian terrain stretching back to the horizon. The four circular features on the front edge of the rover are the lenses for the left and right sets of Curiosity's hazard avoidance cameras, or Hazcams. Because of the different perspectives used for different images, some of the borders of the photos don't line up precisely. Curiosity was on its way to study a point of geological interest known as Glenelg.
Mmm, Marsberries!
Small spherical objects fill the field in this Martian mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA's Opportunity rover. The Sept. 6 view covers an area about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) across, at an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. Shortly after its landing in 2004, Opportunity spotted similar spherules that were nicknamed "blueberries," but these berries are not as rich in iron, posing a scientific puzzle.
Pencil or witch's broom?
The oddly shaped Pencil Nebula (NGC 2736) is pictured in this image from the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, released on Sept, 24. This nebula is a small part of a huge remnant left over after a supernova explosion that took place about 11,000 years ago. "The brightest part resembles a pencil; hence the name, but the whole structure looks rather more like a traditional witch's broom," the ESO science team said.
Godspeed, Neil Armstrong
Mourners in the front row at the national memorial service for moonwalker Neil Armstrong include his Apollo 11 crewmate, Buzz Aldrin; Annie Glenn and her husband, retired senator-astronaut John Glenn; and Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall. The service was conducted at Washington National Cathedral in the nation's capital on Sept. 13. Neil Armstrong, who became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969, died on Aug. 25 at the age of 82.
Burial at sea
Members of a U.S. Navy ceremonial guard hold a U.S. flag over an urn containing the cremated remains of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong during a burial-at-sea service aboard the USS Philippine Sea in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 14. The ceremony was conducted in accordance with the wish expressed by Armstrong, who was a Navy aviator as well as the first astronaut to walk on the moon.
Liftoff into the fog
An Atlas 5 rocket carrying a satellite payload for the National Reconnaissance Office blasts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sept. 13. Designated NROL-36, the classified mission is in support of national defense.
Back on Earth
Ground personnel carry NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba shortly after landing near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan on Sept. 17. Acaba and two Russian cosmonauts came back down to Earth on a Russian Soyuz capsule after spending four months on the International Space Station.
Glowing boot
This oblique, nighttime panorama of southern Europe was captured on camera from the International Space Station in August and published online on Sept. 6. The station was flying past at an altitude of about 240 miles. Italy's "boot" is visible running diagonally southward from the horizon across the center of the frame, with the night lights of Rome and Naples visible on the coast near the center. Sardinia and Corsica are just above left center of the photo, and Sicily is at lower left. The Adriatic Sea is on the other side of Italy, and beyond it to the east and north can be seen parts of several other European nations.
Into the Whirlpool
This picture of the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51, has been judged the top winner in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The picture was entered by British-Australian photographer Martin Pugh. Hundreds of photos were entered in the competition, which is sponsored by Britain's Royal Observatory. The winners were announced Sept. 19.
Mountains on Mercury
Rachmaninoff is a spectacular double-ring basin on the planet Mercury. This color view, acquired by NASA's Messenger spacecraft and released Sept. 12, is one of the highest-resolution color image sets showing the basin's floor. Visible around the edges of the frame is a circle of mountains that make up Rachmaninoff's peak ring structure, which surrounds the concentric troughs on the basin floor.
Training for space
Members of the next expedition to the International Space Station - NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Evgeny Tarelkin - hold hands before their final preflight practical examination in a mockup of a Soyuz TMA spacecraft at Russia's Star City training center on Sept. 21. The three are due to blast off to the station from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 23.
A surprising superbubble
This composite view, released Sept. 3, shows the star-forming region LHA 120-N44 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The color-coded picture combines visible-light data from the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla facility in Chile with images in infrared light and X-rays from two orbiting satellite observatories, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Radiation from the massive stars at the center of the image has cleared out a huge cavity, called a "superbubble," surrounded by clouds of gas and dust.
Giant asteroid
The shadowy outlines of the terrain in the giant asteroid Vesta's northern region are seen in this image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, released on Sept. 5. The picture comes from the last sequence of images Dawn obtained as it left the asteroid and began its cruise to the dwarf planet Ceres. The view looks down at Vesta's north pole, which is in the middle of the image. When Dawn arrived in July 2011, Vesta's north pole was in darkness. After more than a year at Vesta, the sunlight has now made it to Vesta's north pole.
30 million light-years away
A beautiful view of the galaxy NGC 7090 is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image, made available on Sept. 17. The galaxy is viewed edge-on from the Earth, meaning we cannot easily see the spiral arms, which are full of young, hot stars. However, the side-on view shows the galaxy's disc and the bulging central core. Lying in the southern constellation Indus, NGC 7090 is located about 30 million light-years from the sun. Astronomer John Herschel first observed this galaxy in 1834.
Space triathlon
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams exercises on the Cycle Ergometer in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station on Sept. 16, while participating in the first triathlon in space simultaneously with athletes in Southern California's Nautica Malibu Triathlon. Williams used exercise equipment, including a stationary bike, treadmill and strength-training machine specially designed for weightlessness, to simulate the triathlon experience in space.
The sun in a spacewalker's hand
NASA's Sunita Williams appears to reach out toward the sun in a picture taken by Japan's Aki Hoshide during a Sept. 5 spacewalk at the International Space Station. Williams and Hoshide used improvised tools, including a toothbrush, to clear the way for the installation of a replacement power switching unit for the station.
Solar eruption
A long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupts out into space on Aug. 31. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled outward at more than 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but the storm did connect with Earth's magnetosphere, causing auroral displays on the night of Sept. 3. This picture includes an Earth-sized dot to provide a sense of scale.
Starry night
Swirls of green and red appear in an aurora over Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory on the night of Sept. 3. The northern lights were sparked by a storm of electrically charged particles that was thrown off by the sun on Aug. 31.
A Martian rock called Jake
NASA's Curiosity rover stopped about 8 feet (2.5 meters) in front of this Red Planet rock on Sept. 19, the mission's 43rd Martian day, or sol. The pyramid-shaped chunk was the first rock that the Curiosity rover touched for science's sake. It was named "Jake Matijevic" in honor of a top engineer who worked on every one of NASA's rover missions — but passed away just days after Curiosity's landing. Jake the rock, which measures about 10 inches (25 centimeters) tall, provided a good reference point for the rover's sophisticated instruments.
Hollywood debut
The space shuttle Endeavour, perched atop its modified 747 carrier jet, is escorted by two other planes as it passes in front of Los Angeles' Hollywood sign on Sept. 21. Endeavour landed at Los Angeles International Airport and is due to go on display at its new permanent home, the California Science Center, in October.
August 2012 in Space
Flying saucer, for real!
A video camera mounted on the bottom of NASA's Curiosity rover captures a view of the disk-shaped heat shield falling away during the spacecraft's high-stakes descent on Aug. 5. The light soil and dark sand of the Martian surface provide a backdrop for the image. The heat shield crashed to the ground, while the rover was lowered safely to the surface by its rocket-powered descent stage.
'Touchdown confirmed!'
The entry, descent and landing team for the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission erupts in cheers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., after seeing the first images sent from Mars by the Curiosity rover on Aug. 5.
Self-portrait
This distorted self-portrait shows the deck of the Curiosity rover on Aug. 7, as recorded in a mosaic of 20 pictures from the rover's navigation camera system. The back of the rover can be seen at the top left of the image, and two of the rover's wheels can be seen on the left. The undulating rim of Mars' Gale Crater is visible in the far background. Bits of gravel, thrown up during the descent, litter the deck of the rover. The rover's camera mast is missing from the mosaic because of the process used to stitch the images together.
What time is it on Mars?
David Oh, a flight director for NASA's Curiosity mission on Mars, uses a NASA iPhone app to check the time on Mars with his son Devyn as they write down their daily activities on a mirror at their home in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. The Oh family has been living on Mars time and following an odd schedule ever since the Curiosity rover landed in a Martian crater on Aug. 5. Because the Martian day is almost 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, the family's schedule shifts around the clock. Branden Oh is seen second from right.
Shooting star
Veteran astrophotographer Roberto Porto snapped this spectacular view of a Perseid meteor over Mount Tiede National Park in the Canary Islands on Aug. 11 during the peak of the 2012 Perseid meteor shower. The Milky Way and a rock arch known as Zapata de la Reina (the Queen's Shoe) are visible.
Supernova in the swirl
An Aug. 1 image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a new view of the galaxy M83. This picture represents one of the deepest X-ray observations ever made of a spiral galaxy beyond our own. The view shows low, medium and high-energy X-rays in red, green, and blue respectively. X-ray readings for a supernova remnant known as SN 1957D provide information about the nature of the stellar explosion that occurred inside M83. The energy distribution suggests that SN 1957D contains a neutron star.
Rumble in the jungle
An Ariane 5 rocket blasts off on Aug. 2 from the European Space Agency's launch center in French Guiana, putting two telecommunication satellites into orbit. The satellites - Intelsat 20 and Hylas 2 - will provide video, telephone and data service for areas of Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Asia
Splashdown
Engineers conduct a water impact exercise using an 18,000-pound (8,165-kilogram) test version of the Orion deep-space capsule at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia on Aug. 23. Drop tests are being conducted at Langley's Hydro Impact Basin to certify the Orion spacecraft for water landings. NASA is developing the Orion to carry astronauts beyond Earth orbit in the 2020s.
Dark nebula
This Aug. 15 picture shows Barnard 59, part of a vast dark cloud of interstellar dust called the Pipe Nebula. The dark nebula view was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla astronomical facility in Chile.
Baltic blastoff
Copenhagen Suborbitals tested its "Beautiful Betty" capsule and Launch Escape System rocket on Aug. 12 from a floating launch platform in the Baltic Sea. In this picture, the LES rocket can be seen spinning out of control. Eventually, Copenhagen Suborbitals plans to send paying passengers on low-cost suborbital space trips. For this flight, a crash-test dummy nicknamed Randy was placed inside the capsule.
Unusual Flying Object
NASA's remotely operated X-48C Blended Wing Body aircraft lifts off from Rogers Dry Lake for its first test flight at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on Aug. 7.
Shuttle vs. shuttle
The retired space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis switched locations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 16, and in the process they came "nose-to-nose" for the last time in front of Orbiter Processing Facility 3. Endeavour is being prepared for delivery to the California Science Center in mid-September, while Atlantis is due to be moved to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in November.
Practicing for an asteroid trip
Crew members conducting a simulated mission to a near-Earth asteroid sit inside a prototype for a future Space Exploration Vehicle on Aug. 24 during Desert RATS exercises at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. RATS stands for "Research and Technology Studies."
Strapped in zero-G
NASA astronaut Alvin Drew tries out the ARGOS system, which is designed to simulate microgravity during an asteroid mission. A zero-G journey to a near-Earth asteroid was the scenario for NASA's annual Desert RATS simulation, which was conducted over 10 days in August. ARGOS stands for "Active Response Gravity Offload System."
From a cave to the cosmos
Astronauts explore a cave on the Italian island of Sardinia as part of the European Space Agency's training program. The ESA's weeklong cave training program prepares astronauts to work as an international team under real exploration conditions. Living underground helps the trainees get used to confined spaces, minimal privacy, technical challenges and limited equipment and supplies for hygiene and comfort - in short, the living conditions they'll encounter in space.
A crowd of stars
This Aug. 2 image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a crowded star cluster known as Messier 107. It's one of more than 150 globular star clusters found around the disk of the Milky Way galaxy. These spherical collections contains hundreds of thousands of extremely old stars and are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way. Messier 107 is about 20,000 light years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus
Farewell to ice
Ice retreated rapidly this summer from the Parry Channel, part of the famous Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. These pictures, acquired by an imager on NASA's Terra satellite, shows the extent of the ice on July 17 (top) and on Aug. 3 (bottom).
Fiery failure
NASA's Morpheus lander bursts into flames at the end of a free-flight test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 9. During its test flight at the space center's Shuttle Landing Facility, the vehicle lifted off the ground but could not maintain stable flight. No one was injured, and the resulting blaze was extinguished by firefighters.
Olympic moon
The full moon rises through the Olympic Rings hanging beneath Tower Bridge during the London 2012 Olympic Games on Aug. 3. August is notable for having two full moons in the same month, a relatively rare phenomenon. The month's second full moon has come to be known as a "blue moon."
Clusters collide
Astronomers using data from the Hubble Space Telescope caught two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The 30 Doradus nebula is 170,000 light-years from Earth. What at first was thought to be only one cluster in the core of 30 Doradus has been found to be a composite of two clusters that differ in age by about a million years. The observations were made with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in 2009, and the resulting image was released Aug. 16
July 2012 in Space
Summer delight
Robert Snache, a photographer living in the Rama First Nation in Ontario, captured this view of the northern lights on the night of July 8-9.
Butterfly crater
This computer-generated perspective view shows a crater in the Melas Dorsa region of Mars. The picture was created from data acquired by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, and released by the ESA on July 5. The 10-mile-wide crater's shape and the butterfly-shaped blanket of debris suggest that the landscape was altered by a comet or asteroid that made a low-angle impact.
Winter haven
A full-circle view from NASA's Opportunity rover, released on July 5, shows an area of Mars known as Greeley Haven. This is where the rover spent four months during the Martian winter. Among the sights visible in the panoramic image are the fresh tracks made by the rover as it studied the site. The rover's solar arrays and deck can be seen in the foreground.
Frost in Martian gullies
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, released July 18, shows a crater wall in the Red Planet's southern hemisphere with gully landforms. In the Martian winter, frost - mostly carbon dioxide - can build up in the gullies, especially on the cold slopes that face the pole. In this enhanced-color view, bluish frost can be clearly seen in the upper alcoves of the gullies
What a view!
Parachutist Felix Baumgartner descends in the desert during his second test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, N.M., on July 25. Baumgartner is planning to ride a balloon to an altitude of 23 miles, then take a supersonic jump that would break decades-old records.
A glimpse of the Guppy
A crowd in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood watches NASA's Super Guppy aircraft approach Boeing Field on June 30, carrying a key piece of a space shuttle mockup that is going on display at Seattle's Museum of Flight. The mockup had been used at NASA's Johnson Space Center for astronaut training.
Southern swirl
NASA astronaut Joe Acaba captured this photo of the southern lights from the International Space Station on July 14-15, during an uptick in solar activity.
Fantastic Flame
This NASA image, released on July 27, shows the Flame Nebula as it sits on the eastern hip of the constellation Orion. The picture was taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and shows a vast cloud of gas and dust where new stars are being born.
Next stop: space station
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 15, carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide will spend four months on the orbiting outpost.
Swiss spectacle
The Milky Way shines at night at around 1 a.m. July 26, as seen from the Stanserhorn in the Swiss Alps.
Stormy sun
NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager telescope, or Hi-C, captured this high-resolution shot of the sun's outer atmosphere during a 10-minute suborbital spaceflight on July 11.
Five moons for Pluto
This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on July 7, shows five moons orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle marks a newly discovered moon, designated S/2012 (134340) 1, or P5. The moon is estimated to be 6 to 15 miles (10 to 25 kilometers) across.
Enterprise meets the public
Museumgoers look over the prototype space shuttle Enterprise in the new Space Shuttle Pavilion at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York on July 19. The Enterprise never actually went into space, but was used for aerodynamic flight tests.
A different kind of space shuttle
The Galileo NCC-1701/7 shuttlecraft prop used in the original "Star Trek" TV series was sold at auction in late June for a whopping $70,000. A group called the Galileo Restoration plans to restore it in time to go on tour for the 50th anniversary of "Star Trek" in 2016.
Having a blast in Britain
British billionaire Richard Branson waves a model of the LauncherOne cargo spacecraft from the window of an actual size model of the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane during the Farnborough Air Show in southern England on July 11. Branson, the founder of the Virgin Galactic space venture, unveiled his plans for LauncherOne at the annual aerospace extravaganza
Shadows at Saturn
Saturn's rings cast shadows on the planet's cloud tops in this picture, taken by the Cassini orbiter. Cassini captured the view from a distance of approximately 621,000 miles (999,000 kilometers).
Weird vortex on Titan
A patch of gas swirls around the south polar region of the Saturnian moon Titan in this picture, captured on June 27 by NASA's Cassini orbiter. The formation of a gaseous vortex at Titan's south pole may be related to the coming southern winter
Celestial fireworks
A nearly spherical shell of glowing gas surrounds U Camelopardalis, an unstable star nearing the end of its life. This picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on July 9.
Cosmic cat
The Cat's Paw Nebula shines in a July 9 photo that combines exposures from the European Southern Observatory's MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope and from expert amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Ryan M. Hannahoe. The nebula gets its name from the reddish puffy clouds of glowing gas that look like the pads of a cat's paw.
Orion in the spotlight
The first flight shell of NASA's new Orion spacecraft is presented to invited guests and journalists inside the Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 2. Eventually, Orion capsules may carry people beyond Earth orbit, to near-Earth asteroids and Mars
Saluting spacefliers
Chinese astronauts Liu Wang, Jing Haipeng and Liu Yang salute in front of the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou 9 spacecraft in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on June 29. Shenzhou 9 put the country's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang, into space and performed a docking test that was critical to China's goal of building a space station by 2020.
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