This week in 1973, the second crewed Skylab mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following a successful 59-day mission in the orbiting laboratory. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/257812main_SL3-115-01837_full.jpg

This sequence of color-enhanced images shows how quickly the viewing geometry changes for NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it swoops by Jupiter. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/perijove_8_overview-opt.jpg

Stunning views like this image of Saturn's night side are only possible thanks to our robotic emissaries like Cassini. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21350-1041.jpg

It's planting season on the International Space Station! http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss053e047067.jpg

History changed on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, about 23 inches in diameter and weighing less than 190 pounds. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/sputnik1-mockup.jpg

Members of the National Space Council are seen during the council's first meeting on Oct. 5 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/37488222542_f680cf2a11_o.jpg

Astronaut Randy Bresnik conducts a spacewalk on October 5. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss053e079404.jpg

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) shows one possible place where sand grains are being produced on Mars today. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia22043.jpg

On October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 launched http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/9460154150_fa5dfb5909_o.jpg

Dawn bring the sight of Dream Chaser, Sierra Nevada's reusable spaceplane, as it sits on the runway at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/afrc2017-0271-13.jpg

This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from neutron stars just before they collided. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/neutron_star_merger_still_3.jpg

Hidden beneath Chamber A at the Johnson Space Center is an area engineers used to test critical contamination control technology that has helped keep our James Webb Space Telescope clean during cryogenic testing. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nithin_mac_panel_0.jpg

Jupiter’s moon Amalthea casts a shadow on the gas giant planet in this image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21969.png

This Hubble image shows what happens when two galaxies become one. The twisted cosmic knot seen here is NGC 2623 — or Arp 243 — and is located about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab). http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1742a.jpg

Saturn's graceful lanes of orbiting ice -- its iconic rings -- wind their way around the planet to pass beyond the horizon in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21352-1041.jpg

In this June 1973 photo, astronaut Paul J. Weitz, Skylab 2 pilot, mans the control and display console of the Apollo Telescope Mount. Weitz, who also commanded the STS-6 shuttle mission and served as Deputy Director of Johnson Space Center, passed away this week at the age of 85. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/sl2-x9-747.jpg

NASA astronauts Joe Acaba (left) and Randy Bresnik (right) at work outside the International Space Station on Oct. 20, 2017, in the third of a series of three planned spacewalks. The two astronauts successfully completed the 6 hour, 49 minute spacewalk at 2:36 p.m. EDT. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss053e119677.jpg

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, organisms in a Petri plate are exposed to blue excitation lighting in a Spectrum prototype unit. NASA scientists and engineers are developing experiments to determine how different organisms, such as plants, microbes or worms, develop under conditions of microgravity. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/ksc-20171016-ph_csh01_0005_0.jpg

This Hubble infrared image is part of an observing program that imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters to find the brightest distant galaxies for theJames Webb Space Telescope to study. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1743a.jpg

Flying hundreds miles above, astronauts aboard the International Space Station photographed Lake Hazlett and Lake Willis in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert. Hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes are peppered throughout the arid Australian Outback. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss052-e-20826_lrg.jpg