24 Unbelievable Photos Released by NASA

The Omega Nebula (M17) resembles the fury of a raging sea, showing a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulphur. The nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, is a hotbed of newly born stars residing 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from the young massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red in this photograph. The green represents an even hotter gas.

July 1969: This view from the Apollo 11 spacecraft shows the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon. The lunar terrain pictured is in the area of Smyth’s Sea on the nearside.

Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras — stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere — on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester). 2016

17 September 2011: This is one of a series of night-time images photographed by one of the Expedition 29 crew members from the International Space Station. It features Aurora Australis, seen from a point over the southeast Tasman Sea near southern New Zealand.

5 September 2012: NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Expedition 32 flight engineer, appears to touch the bright sun during the mission’s third session of extravehicular activity (EVA). During the six-hour, 28-minute spacewalk, Williams and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide (visible in the reflections of Williams’ helmet visor), flight engineer, completed the installation of a Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) and installed a camera on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2.

2016: The view members of NASA’s Engineering Management Board had in looking up the Vehicle Assembly Building’s High Bay 3 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The platforms in High Bay 3, including the one on which the board members are standing, were designed to surround and provide access to NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

The Mars Pathfinder, a robotic spacecraft, roving the rocky terrain of Mars. 1997

This view of Jupiter was taken by Voyager 1. This image was taken through colour filters and recombined to produce the colour image. This photo was assembled from three black and white negatives by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 1998

NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope aboard ESA’s SOHO spacecraft took this image of a huge, handle-shaped prominence in 1999. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended in the Sun’s hot, thin corona.

Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager LORRI were combined with colour data from the spacecraft Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto. 2015.

NASA Hubble Space Telescope captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula. 2010.

Backlit wisps along the Horsehead Nebula upper ridge are being illuminated by Sigma Orionis, a young five-star system just off the top of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. 2013.

Saturn’s shadow stretched beyond the edge of its rings for many years after Cassini first arrived at Saturn, casting an ever-lengthening shadow that reached its maximum extent at the planet’s 2009 equinox. This image captured the moment in 2015 when the shrinking shadow just barely reached across the entire main ring system. The view was obtained approximately 1.6 million miles (2.5 million kilometres) from Saturn.

The dusty side of the Sword of Orion is illuminated in this striking infrared image. This immense nebula is the closest large region of star formation, situated about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. The parts that are easily observed in visible light correspond to the light blue regions. This is the glow from the warmest dust, illuminated by clusters of hot stars that have only recently been born in this chaotic region. The red spine of material running from corner to corner reveals colder, denser filaments of dust and gas that are scattered throughout the Orion nebula.

This enhanced-colour view of Jupiter’s south pole was created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset using data from the JunoCam instrument on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Oval storms dot the cloudscape. Approaching the pole, the organized turbulence of Jupiter’s belts and zones transitions into clusters of unorganized filamentary structures, streams of air that resembles giant tangled strings. The image was taken from an altitude of about 32,400 miles (52,200 kilometres) above the planet’s beautiful cloud tops.

Astronaut Edward H. White II, his face covered by a shaded visor to protect him from the unfiltered rays of the sun. White became the first American astronaut to walk in space. He remained outside the spacecraft for 21 minutes during the third revolution of the Gemini-4 mission. He wears a specially designed spacesuit for the extravehicular activity (EVA). In his right hand, he carries a Hand-Held Self-Maneuvering Unit (HHSMU) with which he controlled his movements while in space. He was attached to the spacecraft by a 25-feet umbilical line and a 23-feet tether line, both wrapped together with gold tape to form one cord. He wears an emergency oxygen supply chest pack.

NASA Galileo spacecraft took this image of Earth moon on December 7, 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the image is the Tycho impact basin.

This image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, 1,450 light-years from Earth. The nebula is close enough to appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the constellation. 2006

The International Space Station continues its orbit around the Earth as Expedition 50 astronauts captured this night image of sparkling cities and a sliver of daylight framing the northern hemisphere.

The space shuttle Atlantis is seen shortly after the rotating service structure (RSS) was rolled back at launch pad 39a, July 7, 2011 at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

This colour image of the Earth was obtained by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft on Dec. 11, 1990, when the spacecraft was about 1.5 million miles from the Earth.

A nearly-full moon sets as the space shuttle Discovery sits atop launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is scheduled to launch the crew of Expedition 21 and a spaceflight participant on Sept. 30, 2009. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)