The Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Monday, April 10, 2017 (Kazakh time). http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/33110046934_8e3808871c_o.jpg

Through NASA's Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF) program, a fresh approach to designing and manufacturing heat-thwarting thermal protection systems - or heatshields - for spacecraft is being developed and tested, offering the promise of fabricating larger tile sizes while reducing labor, cost and waste. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/strg_nstrf_edl_visualization_joe_brock2_0.jpg

NASA scientists are releasing new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/blackmarble_2016_americas_composite.png

Starburst galaxies contain regions where stars are forming at such a breakneck rate that the galaxy is eating up its gas supply faster than it can be replenished. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1715a.jpg

When imaged at infrared wavelengths that pierce the planet’s upper haze layer, the high-speed winds of Saturn's atmosphere produce watercolor-like patterns. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia20528-1041.jpg

The Orbital ATK Cygnus pressurized cargo module is carried atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Orbital ATK's seventh commercial resupply services mission will deliver 7,600 pounds of supplies, equipment and scientific research materials to the International Space Station. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/33740085360_2b2f52cfe9_o.jpg

At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, there is a large elliptical galaxy called NGC 4696. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy. New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes has revealed details about this giant black hole. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/cen_multi.jpg

The Soyuz MS-04 rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 1:13 p.m. Baikonur time carrying NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos into orbit to begin their four and a half month mission on the International Space Station. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/33771308020_0abc3563f9_o.jpg

NASA's fleet of 18 Earth science missions in space, supported by aircraft, ships and ground observations, measure aspects of the environment that touch the lives of every person around the world. This visualization shows the NASA fleet in 2017. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/final_earth_obs_fleet06hw.2100_1920x1080.jpg

534 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and counting. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson flew through the standing record for cumulative time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut at 1:27 a.m. EDT on April 24, 2017, and with the recent extension of her stay at the International Space Station, she has five months to rack up a new one. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss050e014337.jpg

It's springtime and the deployed primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope looks like a spring flower in full bloom. Once launched into space, the Webb telescope’s 18-segmented gold mirror is specially designed to capture infrared light from the first galaxies that formed in the early universe. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/otis_to_iis-1.jpg

On Saturday April 22, 2017, Expedition 51 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency photographed Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft as it approached the International Space Station. Using the station's robotic Canadarm2, Cygnus was successfully captured by Pesquet and Commander Peggy Whitson at 6:05 a.m. EDT Saturday morning. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/34040534672_39212f3d5a_o.jpg

Cassini Captures Closest Images of Saturn's Atmosphere http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/main_w00106360-1041.jpg

A engine section structural qualification test article for NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System, is loaded onto the barge Pegasus at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The test article now will make its way from Michoud to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for structural loads testing. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/maf_20170427_p_es_to_pegasus_jlg_-313.jpg

Areas near the equator are frequently cloudy, obscuring the view of Earth’s surface from space. April 7, 2017, was no different. On that day, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of clouds over the Gilbert Islands. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pacificocean_tmo_2017097_lrg.jpg

Machining for NASA's Orion spacecraft, scheduled to fly on the second integrated flight with agency's Space Launch System rocket, is well underway at Ingersoll Machine Tools in Rockford, Illinois. The new deep space spacecraft will take humans farther into the solar system than we have ever traveled before. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/34253921331_aec575a398_o.jpg

In the north, Enceladus' surface appears to be about as old as any in the solar system. The south, however, is an entirely different story. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21326_full.jpg

This 360-degree mosaic from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks out over a portion of the Bagnold Dunes, which stretch for several miles. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia11241_reduced.jpg

Saturn's hexagonal polar jet stream is the shining feature of almost every view of the north polar region of Saturn. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21327-1041.jpg

The shadow of NASA's P-3 aircraft is seen over an iceberg on a May 8, 2017 flight supporting NASA's Operation IceBridge mission. IceBridge began its final week of Arctic Spring 2017 surveys with a glacier-packed mission in Greenland, called Southeast Glaciers 01. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/icebridge_201705_arctic2.jpg