NASA Space shuttle Atlantis (retired) exhibited

Space shuttle Atlantis (retired) is seen fully-exposed, its protective shrink-wrap cover removed, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, April 26, 2013.

CREDIT: Robert Z. Pearlman

Space Shuttle Atlantis (retired) is ready for its admiring public.

The retired NASA orbiter, which is set to go on public display June 29 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, was fully revealed Friday (April 26) after workers spent two days peeling off its protective shrink-wrap cover of the past five months.

"It looks fantastic," Tim Macy, director of project development and construction for Delaware North Parks and Resorts, which runs the visitor complex for NASA, said after seeing Atlantis unwrapped. "It looks better than I thought it was going to look."

"It looks completely different with the plastic on it than the plastic off," Macy told reporters. "But this is the way it is supposed to look. It looks so much like the exhibit's conceptual drawings."

On Thursday, workers began carefully cutting back the 16,000 square feet (1,486 square meters) of shrink wrap that protected Atlantis as its $100 million exhibition building was completed around it.

By the end of the first day, the shuttle's nose, tail, aft engines and left wing were exposed.

On Friday, the workers completed the process, revealing Atlantis' right wing and its 60-foot-long (18 meter) payload bay.

"I cannot wait to get the covers off the windows and get the doors open to see the final configuration," Macy said.

New Exhibition and Website: Evolving Universe

Most stars form close together in nebulae - large cosmic clouds of gas and dust that act as stellar nurseries. 

The nebula IC 410 is located 13,000 light-years from Earth and spans 15 light-years. 

This visible-light photograph was taken with the Megacam instrument on the MMT telescope atop Mount Hopkins, Arizona. Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian CfA.

The cosmos constantly changes. Stars are born, live out their lives, and die - sometimes calmly, sometimes explosively. Galaxies form, grow, and collide dramatically. A new exhibition and website, developed jointly by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, reveal the dynamic and evolving universe through breathtaking photographs and informative captions.

"The Evolving Universe" explores how the stars, galaxies and universe undergo the same stages as life on Earth: from birth, to maturity and, eventually, to death.

This remarkable journey from present-day Earth to the far reaches of space and time will be on view in the museum in Washington, D.C., through July 7, 2013.

A worldwide audience also can experience the exhibition through its website:

All of the images featured in the museum gallery can be downloaded in high-resolution jpegs or PDFs formatted in poster size.

"Anyone can select their favorite space photo, download it, and take it to their local copy shop to print it," said Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who played a lead role in developing the exhibition.

Visitors to the exhibition or website can choose one of two paths to explore the cosmos. They can begin close to home with our solar system and move outward to the farthest reaches of the universe. Or they can begin 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the Big Bang and move forward in time to the present day.

Along their journey they will learn how a variety of telescopes and instruments, many developed by SAO, reveal the fascinating history of the expanding universe.

"We've all seen the amazing pictures from NASA's probes in our own solar system," said McDowell.

"I'm excited about bringing to the public the remarkable images of the broader universe that we astronomers have been exploring with our telescopes. I hope that with this exhibition visitors will take away an appreciation for our larger cosmic neighborhood."

"The Evolving Universe" is located on the second floor of the National Museum of Natural History, between the Minerals Store and the Korea Gallery.

FETTU: From Earth To The Universe: Chandra

Andalusia, Spain
Alhambra monumental complex, Granada, Spain

One of the FETTU exhibits in Andalusia, Spain, by RECTA. Partial view of the installation in the crypt of the Palace of the Emperor Charles V, at the Alhambra monumental complex, Granada.

Note: the exhibition at the Alhambra monumental complex, concretely in the Rennaisance masterwork building known as Palace of the Emperor Charles V. It had the advantage of being at the very centre of the Alhambra complex, and the acess to it is free. -- David Galadi-Enriquez (Organizer)