Just hours after the winter solstice, a mass of energetic particles from the Sun smashed into the magnetic field around Earth. The strong solar wind stream stirred up a display of northern lights over northern Canada. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/aurora_vir_2016357_lrg.jpg
Sunlight truly has come to Saturn's north pole. The whole northern region is bathed in sunlight in this view from late 2016, feeble though the light may be at Saturn's distant domain in the solar system. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia20513_0.jpg
This galaxy acts as an astronomical laser, beaming out microwave emission rather than visible light. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1652a.jpg
A satellite is ejected from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Small Satellite Orbital Deployer on the International Space Station on Dec. 19, 2016. The satellite is actually two small satellites that, once at a safe distance from the station, separated from each other, but were still connected by a 100-meter-long Kevlar tether. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss050e017076.jpg
Floating high above the hydrocarbon lakes, wispy clouds have finally started to return to Titan's northern latitudes. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia20516-1041.jpg
Impact craters expose the subsurface materials on the steep slopes of Mars. However, these slopes often experience rockfalls and debris avalanches that keep the surface clean of dust, revealing a variety of hues, like in this enhanced-color image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, representing different rock types. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia14454.jpg
Astronomers have discovered what happens when the eruption from a supermassive black hole is swept up by the collision and merger of two galaxy clusters. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/a3411.jpg
Here is a view of Earth and its moon, as seen from Mars. It combines two images acquired on Nov. 20, 2016, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with brightness adjusted separately for Earth and the moon to show details on both bodies. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21260.jpg
In an effort to improve fuel efficiency, NASA and the aircraft industry are rethinking aircraft design. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/bli_grc.jpg
NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson's 7th Spacewalk http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/peggyw_spacewalk.jpg
This image of a crescent Jupiter and the iconic Great Red Spot was created by a citizen scientist (Roman Tkachenko) using data from Juno's JunoCam instrument. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/crescent_jupiter-1041.jpg
This image of a well-preserved unnamed elliptical crater in Terra Sabaea, is illustrative of the complexity of ejecta deposits forming as a by-product of the impact process that shapes much of the surface of Mars. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia13078.jpg
This image of a crescent Jupiter and the iconic Great Red Spot was created by a citizen scientist (Roman Tkachenko) using data from Juno's JunoCam instrument. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21376d.jpg
Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA at work outside the International Space Station on Jan. 13, 2017, in a photo taken by fellow spacewalker Thomas Pesquet of ESA. The two astronauts successfully installed three new adapter plates and hooked up electrical connections for three of the six new lithium-ion batteries on the station. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/32260740536_2866cf4065_o.jpg
A grid of small polygons on the Martian rock surface near the right edge of this view may have originated as cracks in drying mud more than 3 billion years ago. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21263.jpg
The wavemaker moon, Daphnis, is featured in this view, taken as NASA's Cassini spacecraft made one of its ring-grazing passes over the outer edges of Saturn's rings on Jan. 16, 2017. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21056-1041.jpg
The release of the first images today from NOAA’s newest satellite, GOES-16, is the latest step in a new age of weather satellites. This composite color full-disk visible image is from 1:07 p.m. EDT on Jan. 15, 2017, and was created using several of the 16 spectral channels available on the GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/abi_full_disk_low_res_jan_15_2017.jpg
In a lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, engineers simulated conditions that astronauts in space suits would experience when the Orion spacecraft is vibrating during launch atop the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket on its way to deep space destinations. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/p1010154.jpg
The JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft snapped this shot of Jupiter’s northern latitudes. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21378.jpg
Uranus' moon Miranda is shown in a computer-assembled mosaic of images obtained Jan. 24, 1986, by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Miranda is the innermost and smallest of the five major Uranian satellites, just 480 kilometers (about 300 miles) in diameter. Nine images were combined to obtain this full-disc, south-polar view. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/9464656357_dcd9554a40_o.jpg