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‘Zero G And I Feel Fine’ — Farewell John Glenn
Astronaut John Glenn stands outside the Friendship 7 space capsule in which he spent four hours and 55 minutes orbiting Earth in 1962. Credit: NASA John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the...
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‘White Stork’ Chases The Space Station
Space station astronauts use the robotic Canadarm to grapple an earlier HTV cargo ship. They’ll do the same with HTV-6, due to berth Tuesday morning. Credit: NASA If you live in mid-northern latitudes,...
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Evening Space Station Passes Get Us Over Winter’s Hump
A 30-second time of exposure captures the International Space Station passing beneath the Big Dipper. Credit: Bob King The big, bright, bodacious International Space Station is back again in the...
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Spring Nights Sweeter With The Space Station
Last night’s aurora was brief but fine and combined multiple bright arcs near the horizon and feathery rays. Credit: Bob King The northern lights should return for a second show tonight starting at...
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To Mercury By Way Of Slinky Crescent
Use the young moon to help you find Mercury tonight (March 29). Created with Stellarium Catch any northern lights last night? It wasn’t easy. A low glow and a few faint rays appeared in the northern...
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Observing Alert — Space Station Marathon Underway!
Astronaut Jack Fischer waves while attached to the Destiny laboratory during a spacewalk to replace a failed computer relay box and install a pair wireless antennas earlier today. Credit: NASA...
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Space Station Makes July Dusk Debut
Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer assess spaceflight-induced changes in muscle volume on the space station this week. Credit: NASA Just a reminder that the International Space Station...
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Little Aurora Storm Possible Tonight Aug. 4
The sun’s magnetic field gets “unzipped” when a coronal hole (the dark feature) opens up in its atmosphere, allowing high-speed winds of particles to whoosh into space and breeze over to Earth. This...
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Space Station Blows In With The Fall Wind
A firefly flashes during an ISS pass in late July this summer. Credit: Bob King Better grab my coat. I feel a nip in the night wind. Temperatures in the low 40s are most welcome after a warm, wet,...
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China’s Tiangong 1 Space Station Expected To Burn Up In Early 2018
The Tiangong 1 space station is currently orbiting 186 miles (300 km) above the Earth. Friction with the upper atmosphere will eventually get the better of it and bring the station down in a fiery...
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Early Nights, Early Space Station Viewing
Astronaut Don Pettit took multiple 30-second exposures over about 15 minutes then stacked them together with imaging software to create this single time exposure showing the view out the window of the...
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Juno Eyes Jupiter A 10th Time / Space Station Plies Evening Sky
Jupiter appears in this color-enhanced image as a quilt of vibrant cloud bands and storms. The dark region in the far left is called the South Temperate Belt. At right is the South Equatorial Belt, one...
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See The Spring Triangle / Farewell Humanity!
The Spring Triangle brings in the season. You can spot it around 10-10:30 p.m. local time in the southeastern sky in mid March and around 9:30-10 p.m. at the end of the month. Bob King We all enjoy...
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Look Into The ‘Eyes’ Of March / Hello, Space Station!
Mars and Saturn look like two bright eyes low in the southeastern sky at the start of dawn this morning (March 23). They’re equally bright at magnitude 0.5 but of different colors. Can you tell which...
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Gaia’s Gift — The Lowdown On 1.7 Billion Stars
This all-sky view of the entire Milky Way (as seen from both the northern and southern hemispheres) is not a photograph but a map based on individual measurements for nearly 1.7 billion stars. The data...
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Space Station Visits ‘Land Of The Midnight Sun’
The International Space Station — about the size of a football field — is by far the largest and routinely brightest satellite in orbit. For the next couple weeks, it will be making multiple passes...
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Hey Hey Hey, Here Comes The Space Station
This time exposure caught the International Space Station gliding beneath the Big Dipper during evening twilight. Now through early August, skywatchers will have many opportunities to see the station...
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Want To See The Space Station? Now’s A Great Time
A stunning image of the aurora from the International Space Station. NASA / ESA The International Space Station (ISS) has a cycle. For a week or more, it only makes passes during daylight hours, so...
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Van Allen Belts “Touch” The Earth In South Atlantic Anomaly
This night satellite image, taken on July 14, 2017, picks up the heat from dozens of fires but also an anomalous “hot spot” in the middle of the South Atlantic. NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren...
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NASA Mars Blitz Underway — InSight Lander To Touch Down On Nov. 26
Jezero crater was the site of an ancient lake and now the landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission to look for past life. The outlet canyon carved by overflow flooding is visible in the upper...
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