Just hit “Play.” It’s so worth it.

NASA:

In the three years since it first provided images of the sun in the spring of 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has had virtually unbroken coverage of the sun’s rise toward solar maximum, the peak of solar activity in its regular 11-year cycle. This video shows those three years of the sun at a pace of two images per day.

New York City from space.

(via Gizmodo)

Is it even real?

Earth Science Picture of the Day:

The photo above shows a surreal-looking ice cave on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. It was formed by a stream flowing from the hot springs associated with the Mutnovsky volcano. This stream flows beneath glacial ice on the flanks of Mutnovsky. Because glaciers on Kamchatka volcanoes have been melting in recent years, the roof of this cave is now so thin that sunlight penetrates through it, eerily illuminating the icy structures within. Photo taken on September 12, 2012.

Pretty pictures of the Earth.

NASA | Best of “Earth As Art” — Top Five (by NASAexplorer)

Happy Weekend! Catch you Monday, Internet!

2012 04 17 - 3005 - Washington DC - Space Shuttle Discovery (by thisisbossi)

lookhigh:

Sunset, Moonset

On Sunday, July 31, 2011, when Expedition 28 astronaut Ron Garan aboard the International Space Station looked out his window, this is what he saw: the moon. And, he saw it 16 times. Said Garan, “We had simultaneous sunsets and moonsets.” For Garan and the rest of the station crew, this extraordinary event is a daily occurrence. Since the station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, each day the crew experiences this about 16 times a day. (NASA)

(HT: The Picture Show)

Sunrise…Sunset….

respicefinem:

A Launch Photo 30 Years In The Making

This is all kinds of awesome.

yearoftheshark:

Liftoff at 15 Seconds, 1982, Jack Perlmutter

3…2…1…

In 1981, when the shuttle program was in its infancy, many thought it seemed unreal. Now, as Atlantis readies to take the program’s final flight, space enthusiasts are looking back at the 30 years as a golden chapter in human exploration.

3rdofmay:

The art: Joel Sternfeld, The Space Shuttle Columbia Lands at Kelly Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, 1979.

The news: “What does the final shuttle flight mean for space exploration,” by Ian Sample in The Guardian.

The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Liftoff.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (via NASA)

A fascinating story about a Russian cosmonaut up in space, crying because he knew he was never coming home (photo of the speech prepared just-in-case something happened to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had they been marooned or killed.)

Super Full Moon - NASA

boston:

On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It’s a super “perigee moon”—the biggest in almost 20 years.

Space shuttle Discovery, the workhorse of the shuttle fleet, has carried almost 200 astronauts and numerous science missions to space in its three decades of spaceflight. It launches on its final flight, to the International Space Station, Thursday afternoon.