Your backstage pass to the universe and how NASA studies it. Exoplanets, black holes, dark energy, and more!
- Tweets12.7K
- Following80
- Followers1.1M
- Likes327
ALT On a dark blue background covered with tiny white stars, an inset image shows NASA astronaut Franklin R. Chang-Diaz during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station in June 2002. Chang-Diaz wears a bulky white spacesuit with red accents and an American flag on one shoulder. He is perched atop a small platform with the cloudy surface of Earth nearly filling the background. He holds a tool in his right hand and a circular piece of hardware in his left. The shiny golden front panel of his helmet reflects what he is working on. Above the inset image is text that reads “Challenge” and “Space Mission Design Game,” followed by a paragraph describing the challenge which is available at the link in the post. The lower-right corner reads “NASA Space Apps Challenge” and has an icon of a larger circle with a smaller circle overlaid on its upper-right edge with five small lines extending from it. Credit: NASA
ALT This artist’s concept depicts the Compton Spectrometer and Imager, or COSI, in orbit. The white and silver spacecraft has a boxy six-sided shape with multiple protruding instruments covering the near end. A large dark solar panel with a gold frame extends toward the left. Below, Earth fills the left half of the image with brilliant blue oceans and swirling white cloud formations. COSI is positioned at the edge of Earth's bright atmosphere, and the distant background shows mottled dark blue space sprinkled with stars and colorful glowing objects. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept” and “Credit: Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation”
ALT The Compton Spectrometer and Imager, or COSI, payload awaits launch on a NASA super-pressure balloon in Wanaka, New Zealand, in May 2016. On the right, an enormous scientific balloon inflates under a clear blue sky with several snowcapped mountains in the background. The balloon is white, slightly transparent, and ribbed vertically. In front of the balloon extends a long white tube, which leads to a helium hose hidden by the tall yellow crane in the foreground. The COSI payload is suspended from the crane. A long white cloth behind the crane protects the lower part of the balloon that is laying on the ground while it waits to be inflated. The center of the payload is a square with the top half covered with a shiny silver material. Solar panels extend from the sides of the payload, each containing multiple squares. Smaller solar panels extend below the payload on the front, left and right. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Bill Rodman.”
ALT This is a composite image of a spiral galaxy with a giant, unstable star at its outer edge. The spiral galaxy, NGC 4559, is shown at a sharp angle in the image, its flat pink and milky blue face tilts toward our upper left. Sitting near the outer edge of the dense spiral, near the center of the frame, is a small group of pink and blue dots. This group is outlined with an illustrated white square. The smallest pink dot in the square is AT 2016blu, a massive star some 33 times the size of our Sun. Other pink and blue specks within the white square and enlargement are unresolved stars or star clusters, too distant to be related to the movement of material between AT 2016blu and its hidden but influential neighbor.
ALT A pair of interacting galaxies morph together into a lopsided shape near center, shining against a crowded field of stars.
ALT Promotional graphic for the NASA Space Apps Challenge featuring three past participants holding award trophies. Text reads “Explore the Next Frontier” and announces the event dates, November 14–15, 2026. The NASA Space Apps Challenge logo and a registration link, spaceappschallenge.org, appear at the bottom.
ALT This is a composite image of Tycho's supernova remnant in X-ray and visible light. The remnant is mostly round in shape, and it resembles a fluffy, clumpy cotton ball set against a starry sky. Its surface looks like a mottled mix of purples, pinks, and blues, with tightly packed tufts of color. Stars shine across the image in optical light. The image is watermarked with “X-ray (IXPE: NASA/ASI/MSFC/INAF/R. Ferrazzoli, et al.), (Chandra: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato et al.) Optical: DSS” and “Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, L. Frattare & N. Wolk.”
ALT This is a composite image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4725 against a black background filled with stars and distant galaxies. The galaxy appears tilted diagonally, with a bright cream-colored central bar surrounded by a soft blue disk. A single prominent spiral arm wraps around the galaxy, giving it an unusual one-armed appearance. Small magenta points scattered throughout the galaxy represent X-ray sources detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The galaxy is encircled by a faint ring of star formation, while bright foreground stars sparkle throughout the surrounding field of view.
ALT A star cluster seen up close, filling the view with thousands of stars. They are clearly divided between blue ones, which are scattered around the outskirts of the image but more towards the center and are the majority in the bright core of the cluster, and yellow stars, which are present in the core but make up most of the cluster outside of that. A few orange stars are closer to us and appear noticeably larger.
ALT Against black space, several bright white stars shine, illuminating shadowy clouds of dust, mostly visible in the lower left of the image.
ALT A collage of artistic renderings of differently colored exoplanets in rows, against a black background. In the lower left, faint text reads "Artist's Concept".
ALT An illustration of one of NASA’s twin Voyager probes against an abstract purple and blue background that gives the impression of deep space. Voyager has a white, upturned dish atop a black cylindrical body. A long antenna extends from the body toward the upper left and other shorter hardware protrudes from the sides and bottom. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept” and “Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.”
ALT Clumpy, irregular, cloud-like dwarf galaxy in a roughly rectangular shape is speckled with small, bright, blue points of light and larger, light pink patches throughout. Dark brown and milky white areas are also smudged throughout the center of the galaxy. The galaxy appears against a mostly black background lightly dotted with tiny white, blue, and red stars, and galaxies.
ALT Mary Kathleen McGuirk, an employee at NASA Lewis Research Center (now known as NASA Glenn) wears a pointed hat and rides a space age broom for the center’s Halloween celebration in 1977.