Resembling sparks from a fireworks display, this image taken by a JPL camera onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows delicate filaments that are sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/pia04609orig.jpg)

Jupiter, top, and Venus, bottom, are seen with the crescent Moon above the Vehicle Assembly Building, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as preparations continued for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission. The agency’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission was the sixth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52704988217-a8442a095c-o.jpg)

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Robert Hines participate in STEM demonstrations with local students at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Washington. Lindgren, Hines, and Watkins spent 170 days in space as part of Expeditions 67 and 68 aboard the International Space Station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52782508755-c3a998cde9-o.jpg)

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara has her Russian Sokol spacesuit pressure checked ahead launching to the International Space Station with fellow crewmates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53193285376-f2483c928f-o.jpg)

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features a richness of spiral galaxies: the large, prominent spiral galaxy on the right side of the image is NGC 1356; the two apparently smaller spiral galaxies flanking it are LEDA 467699 (above it) and LEDA 95415 (very close at its left) respectively; and finally, IC 1947 sits along the left side of the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/potw2352a.jpg)

For the first time, astronomers have combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope to study the well-known supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A). This work has helped explain an unusual structure in the debris from the destroyed star called the “Green Monster,” because of its resemblance to the wall in the left field of Fenway Park. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/casa-greenmonster-1.jpg)

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Thursday, January 9, 2014, Wallops Island, VA. Antares is carrying the Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Cygnus is carrying science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware to the space station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/11861725206-3c032d701d-o.jpg)

This deep dataset from Chandra of the remains of a supernova known as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B) reveals evidence for more than one supernova explosion in the history of this remnant. Unusual structures in the Chandra data cannot be explained by a single explosion. These images of 30 Dor B also show optical data from the Blanco telescope in Chile, and infrared data from Spitzer. Additional data from Hubble highlights sharp features in the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/30dorb.jpg)

The Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9 captured this image of Simsbury on September 15, 2022. The tobacco farm where Martin Luther King worked—Meadowood—is located west of the Farmington River, a tributary of the Connecticut River. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/simsbury-oli2-2022258-lrg.jpg)

NASA and Lockheed Martin publicly unveil the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a ceremony in Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/afrc2024-0004-001orig.jpg)

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, over western Canada on November 5, 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/nameraurora-vir-2023309-lrg.jpg)

This Hubble Picture of the Week features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/potw2402a-1.jpg)

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. Erika Blumenfeld, creative lead for the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) and Joe Aebersold, project management lead, captured this picture using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about .4 in (one cm) in size. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/orex-high-res.jpg)

A NASA intern uses an augmented reality headset to test out heads-up display technology being developed for future Artemis missions. This technology was created as part of the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or SUITS, design challenge in which college students from across the country help design user interface solutions for future spaceflight needs. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52945857760-666c5484fe-o.jpg)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft for Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station lifts off at 4:49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Ax-3 is the third all private astronaut mission to the space station, sending crew members Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravci into orbit. The crew will spend about two weeks conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities aboard the space station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ksc-20240118-ph-cms01-0025orig.jpg)

On the 20th anniversary of the landing of Spirit and Opportunity, celebrate NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project with this two-sided poster that lists some of the pioneering explorers’ accomplishments on the Red Planet. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/e1-mer-20th-poster-vert-front-1080x1920-1-eefb7b.png)

From left to right, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, and Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel Eliav Benjamin, place wreaths at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial during a ceremony that was part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53487781115-4a1a9848fa-o.jpg)

The aerial prototype of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steve F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, in Chantilly, Va. The prototype, which was the first to demonstrate it was possible to fly in a simulated Mars environment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was donated to the museum on Friday. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53399676593-57707b89f8-o.jpg)

This high exposure photograph revealed Earth's atmospheric glow against the backdrop of a starry sky in this image taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 21, 2024. At the time, the orbital lab was 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Papua New Guinea. The Nauka science module and Prichal docking module are visible at left. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/iss070e076676orig-iotd.jpg)

A successful liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heads to the International Space Station for the 20th Northrop Grumman resupply mission on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. The spacecraft is expected to reach the space station Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024, bringing 8,200 pounds of science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ksc-20240130-ph-spx02-0003orig.jpg)