Robot Gets a Grip

The blue tentacle-like arms containing gecko-like adhesive pads, attached to an Astrobee robotic free-flyer, reach out and grapple a "capture cube" inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. The experimental grippers, outfitted on the toaster-sized Astrobee, demonstrated autonomous detection and capture techniques that may be used to remove space debris and service satellites in low Earth orbit. via NASA https://ift.tt/OW0IyXv

Apollo 14 Moon Landing

An excellent view of the Apollo 14 lunar module on the Moon, as photographed during the first Apollo 14 moonwalk on the lunar surface. The astronauts have already deployed the U.S. flag. While astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., commander, and Edgar D. Mitchell, lunar module pilot, descended in the lunar module to explore the Moon, astronaut Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, remained with the command and service modules in lunar orbit. via NASA https://ift.tt/9WJGCKX

Bullseye!

LEDA 1313424, aptly nicknamed the Bullseye, is two and a half times the size of our Milky Way and has nine rings — six more than any other known galaxy. High-resolution imagery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirmed eight rings, and data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed a ninth. Hubble and Keck also confirmed which galaxy dove through the Bullseye, creating these rings: the blue dwarf galaxy that sits to its immediate center-left. via NASA https://ift.tt/sMBOcGI

Stacking Artemis II

Engineers and technicians with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program prepare to lift the left center center booster segment shown with the iconic NASA “worm” insignia for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. via NASA https://ift.tt/4JYan3H

Building an Antenna

A crane lowers the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) steel framework for the Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23) reflector dish into position on Dec. 18, 2024, at the Deep Space Network's Goldstone Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California. A multi-frequency beam waveguide antenna, DSS-23 will boost the DSN's capacity and enhance NASA's deep space communications capabilities for decades to come. via NASA https://ift.tt/y5pYtbl

SPHEREx’s Concentric Cones

NASA's SPHEREx observatory is oriented in a horizontal position, revealing all three layers of photon shields as well as the telescope. This photo was taken at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in April 2024. Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will create a map of the cosmos like no other. Using a technique called spectroscopy to image the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, SPHEREx will gather information about the composition of and distance to millions of galaxies and stars. With this map, scientists will study what happened in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, how galaxies formed and evolved, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. via NASA https://ift.tt/SRwK0no

Geyser Season on Mars

Springtime in the South Polar region of Mars is a season of exciting activity. The thick coating of carbon dioxide ice that accumulated over the winter begins to sublimate (turn to vapor) as the sun rises higher in the sky and warms the ice. Sunlight penetrates through the transparent ice, and is absorbed at the base of the ice layer. The gas that forms as a result of the warming escapes through weaknesses in the ice and erupts in the form of magnificent geysers of gas and dust. via NASA https://ift.tt/XeUNt6Y