This nighttime view from the International Space Station shows the city lights of the northeastern United States and major urban areas including Long Island, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. The orbital lab was soaring 262 miles above the Pine Tree State of Maine at the time of this photograph. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss070e013946orig.jpg)

6,500 light-years away lies the Crab Nebula, the remains of an exploded star. While this target has been well-studied by multiple observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s infrared sensitivity and resolution offer new clues into the makeup and origins of this scene. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53297865145-e3db450a1b-o.png)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ultraviolet view of Jupiter. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/hubble-jupiter-jul22-3-flat-final.webp)

The NASA Worm Logo sign is unveiled before the ribbon cutting ceremony to open NASA’s Earth Information Center, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at NASA Headquarters building in Washington. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/nhq202306210039orig.jpg)

The spiral galaxy IC 342, located about 11 million light-years from Earth, lies behind the crowded plane of the Milky Way: Dust, gas, and stars obscure it from our view. Euclid used its near-infrared instrument to peer through the dust and study it. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/euclid-s-view-of-spiral-galaxy-ic-342.jpg)

Casey Denham, aerospace engineer with the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, works with tribal students during a STEM activity at the American Indian Engineering Sciences (AISES) National Conference in Spokane, Washington, Oct. 19-21, 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/casey-denham.jpg)

A sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, Nov. 8, 2023, carrying the DISSIPATION mission. The rocket launched into aurora and successfully captured data to understand how auroras heat the atmosphere and cause high-altitude winds. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/wff-2023-080-157.jpg)

In this photo from Nov. 9, 2023, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket illuminates the water as it launches at night from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 29th commercial resupply mission of the Cargo Dragon spacecraft brought new scientific research, technology demonstrations, crew supplies, and hardware to the International Space Station, including NASA’s Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) and Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE). (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ksc-20231109-ph-kls01-0024-orig.jpg)

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility C-130 aircraft delivered the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Oct. 28, 2023. The GUSTO mission will launch on a scientific balloon in December 2023. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53296469002-a92ea42cb9-o.jpg)

A 35mm camera, operated by astronaut William R. Pogue, Skylab 4 pilot, recorded this wide scene of his Skylab 4 crewmates on the other end of the orbital workshop. Astronauts Jerry P. Carr (right), commander, and Edward G. Gibson, science pilot, pose for the snapshot. Also in the frame are parts of three Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits, used on several EVA sessions during the third manning of the Skylab space station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/sl4-150-5062orig.jpg)

NASA’s Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft lifts off the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/52508519778-6fda3b2c74-o.jpg)

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., attired in his Mercury pressure suit, poses for a photo on May 5, 1961, prior to his launch in a Mercury-Redstone 3 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a suborbital mission – the first U.S. manned spaceflight. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/s63-02082orig.jpg)

The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s reveals a portion of the Milky Way’s dense core in a new light. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. A large region of ionized hydrogen, shown in cyan, contains intriguing needle-like structures that lack any uniform orientation. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/stsci-01hf7p3b6pw5ds5n9m9xd1ey27.png)

NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 flight engineer Nicole Mann is pictured during a fit check of her spacesuit ahead of a planned spacewalk to upgrade the International Space Station's power generation system. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss068e040060orig.jpg)

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Rick Mastracchio, both Expedition 38 flight engineers, pose for a photo with a Thanksgiving meal in the Unity node of the International Space Station. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss038e009306orig.jpg)

A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration from Dec. 20, 2022. A long stream of hot gas on the right, coming from a star that was pulled apart by the black hole, feeds into the disk. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pia25440-orig-iotd.jpg)

The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the space station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss053e023965orig.jpg)

A model of the Mariner-C spacecraft at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center for a June 1964 Conference on New Technology. Mariner-C and Mariner-D were identical spacecraft designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to flyby Mars and photograph the Martian surface. Mariner-C was launched on November 4, 1964, but the payload shroud did not jettison properly and the spacecraft’s battery power did not function. The mission ended unsuccessfully two days later. Mariner-D was launched as designed on November 28, 1964 and became the first successful mission to Mars. It was the first time a planet was photographed from space. Mariner-D’s 21 photographs revealed an inhospitable and barren landscape. The two Mariner spacecraft were launched by Atlas-Agena-D rockets. Lewis had taken over management of the Agena Program in October 1962. There had been five failures and two partial failures in the 17 Agena launches before being taken over by NASA Lewis. Lewis, however, oversaw 28 successful Agena missions between 1962 and 1968, including several Rangers and the Mariner Venus '67. (https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/GRC-1964-C-70182/GRC-1964-C-70182~orig.jpg)

The sun's first rays begin illuminating Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the central United States. At far left, the city lights of Chicago, Illinois, are outlined by Lake Michigan. At far right, the city lights of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area shine through the clouds. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53332473614-7e5c400698-o.jpg)

A cluster brimming with millions of stars glistens like an iridescent opal in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Called Omega Centauri, the sparkling orb of stars is like a miniature galaxy. It is the biggest and brightest of the 150 or so similar objects, called globular clusters, that orbit around the outside of our Milky Way galaxy. Stargazers at southern latitudes can spot the stellar gem with the naked eye in the constellation Centaurus. Globular clusters are some of the oldest objects in our universe. Their stars are over 12 billion years old, and, in most cases, formed all at once when the universe was just a toddler. Omega Centauri is unusual in that its stars are of different ages and possess varying levels of metals, or elements heavier than boron. Astronomers say this points to a different origin for Omega Centauri than other globular clusters: they think it might be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was ripped apart and absorbed by our Milky Way long ago. In this new view of Omega Centauri, Spitzer's infrared observations have been combined with visible-light data from the National Science Foundation's Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Visible-light data with a wavelength of .55 microns is colored blue, 3.6-micron infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera is colored green and 24-micron infrared light taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer is colored red. Where green and red overlap, the color yellow appears. Thus, the yellow and red dots are stars revealed by Spitzer. These stars, called red giants, are more evolved, larger and dustier. The stars that appear blue were spotted in both visible and 3.6-micron-, or near-, infrared light. They are less evolved, like our own sun. Some of the red spots in the picture are distant galaxies beyond our own. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/spiders.jpg)