All-American Salute

From NASA's Image of the Day Gallery



Astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the United States flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity. Astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture. The Lunar Module "Orion" is on the left. The Lunar Roving Vehicle is parked beside Orion and the object behind Young (in the shadow of the Lunar Module) is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. Stone Mountain dominates the background of this lunar scene.

Image Credit: NASA

Stellar Shrapnel

From NASA's Image of the Day Gallery

This composite image shows N49, the aftermath of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A new long observation from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals evidence for a bullet-shaped object being blown out of debris field left over from an exploded star.

In order to detect this bullet, researchers used Chandra to observe N49 for more than 30 hours. Using the new Chandra data, the age of N49 -- as it appears in the image -- is thought to be about 5,000 years and the energy of the explosion is estimated to be about twice that of an average supernova. These preliminary results suggest that the original explosion was caused by the collapse of a massive star.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S. Park et al.
Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H. Chu & R. Williams et al.

Poised for Success

From NASA's Image of the Day Gallery

Anchored to the Canadarm2 mobile foot restraint, Garrett Reisman performed construction and maintenance activities outside the station during the STS-132 mission's first spacewalk. During the seven-hour, 25-minute spacewalk, Reisman and NASA astronaut Steve Bowen installed a second antenna for high-speed Ku-band transmissions and added a spare parts platform to Dextre, a two-armed extension for the station’s robotic arm.

Image Credit: NASA

This is such a great website not only for excellent wallpaper, but to keep up with the daily activity at the space station. This is, I believe, the last mission for the shuttle Atlantis, and the next few flights will also see the retirement of the rest of fleet.

I am extremely apprehensive about the future of US space endeavors. We misuse our national resources in so many ways, but the space program is - for the very most part - money well spent.

Whole Lotta Wallpaper

Loads of 'em

Two Tails to Tell

Galaxy Cluster Has Two 'Tails' to Tell

Two spectacular tails of X-ray emission have been seen trailing behind a galaxy using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627 shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light -- known to astronomers as 'H-alpha' -- in red. The optical and H-alpha data were obtained with the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile.

At the front of the tail is the galaxy ESO 137-001. The brighter of the two tails has been seen before and extends for about 260,000 light years. The detection of the second, fainter tail, however, was a surprise to the scientists.

The X-ray tails were created when cool gas from ESO 137-001 (with a temperature of about ten degrees above absolute zero) was stripped by hot gas (about 100 million degrees) as it travels towards the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627. What astronomers observe with Chandra is essentially the evaporation of the cold gas, which glows at a temperature of about 10 million degrees. Evidence of gas with temperatures between 100 and 1,000 degrees Kelvin in the tail was also found with the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies held together by gravity that are enveloped in hot gas. The two-pronged tail in this system may have formed because gas has been stripped from the two major spiral arms in ESO 137-001. The stripping of gas is thought to have a significant effect on galaxy evolution, removing cold gas from the galaxy, shutting down the formation of new stars in the galaxy, and changing the appearance of inner spiral arms and bulges because of the effects of star formation.

Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVa/M. Sun et al; H-alpha/Optical: SOAR/MSU/NOAO/UNC/CNPq-Brazil/M.Sun et al.

Download image as wallpaper

Mission to Jupiter

From the NASA website:

With its suite of science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras.

Juno’s principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our solar system during its formation. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.

This artist's concept shows the Juno spacecraft in orbit around the planet Jupiter.

Download this image as wallpaper at: NASA's Image of the Day Gallery

A Partial View

Backdropped by the blackness of space, a partial view of Space Shuttle Atlantis' payload bay, vertical stabilizer, orbital maneuvering system pods and docking mechanism are featured in this image photographed by the STS-129 crew from an aft flight deck window.

Image Credit: NASA

Awaiting the Mission

Awaiting the Mission

Space shuttle Atlantis is seen on Launch Pad 39a of the NASA Kennedy Space Center shortly after the rotating service structure was rolled back, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009, Cape Canaveral, FL. Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 2:28p.m. EST on the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

---

Fantastic wallpaper! Visit the site for larger sizes.

Working in a Vacuum

Credit: NASA

From the Nasa website's Image of the Day Gallery

Discovery spacewalker Danny Olivas at work during the STS-128 mission's first spacewalk. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Olivas and astronaut Nicole Stott, removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm.

Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility and Materials International Space Station Experiment from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery’s payload bay for return.

Aloft

From NASA's image of the day:

This image, taken through a telescope, is of the newly designed super pressure balloon aloft over Antarctica.

NASA and the National Science Foundation successfully launched the newly designed super pressure balloon prototype that may herald a new era of high-altitude scientific research. The super-pressure balloon ultimately will carry large scientific experiments to the brink of space for 100 days or more.

This seven-million-cubic-foot super-pressure balloon is the largest single-cell, super-pressure, fully-sealed balloon ever flown. When development ends, NASA will have a 22 million-cubic-foot balloon that can carry a one-ton instrument to an altitude of more than 110,000 feet, which is 3-4 times higher than passenger planes fly.

Ultra-long duration missions using the super pressure balloon cost considerably less than a satellite and the scientific instruments flown can be retrieved and launched again, making them ideal very-high altitude research platforms.

The test flight was launched Dec. 28, 2008, from McMurdo Station, the National Science Foundation's logistics hub in Antarctica.

Image Credit:Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

---

This image and many others are freely available to download for non-commercial use and several different sizes are offered as wallpaper.