NASA Orion Spacecraft: Parachutes Deployed

Three 300-pound main parachutes gently lower a mockup Orion capsule to the ground during a test at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona on Dec. 20.

The test verified that the parachute design for the spacecraft – which will take humans farther than they’ve ever been before and return them to Earth at greater speeds than ever before – will work in the event of one of the capsule’s two drogue parachutes malfunctions.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA ISS Expedition 34 Crew Arrive for Xmas

NASA Mars HiRise Image: Permanent Ice at South Pole

It stays cold enough to maintain permanent year-round ice near Mars' South Pole. 

The defrosting walls of flat-floored pits stand in stark contrast against the carbon dioxide ice. 

The smallest of the pits, at center, are stadium-size.

See more NASA Mars HiRise Images of Mar's North and South Poles.

ESA News Update: Flying in Zero- Gravity - Video

If you fly a plane in the right way at the right speed, you can be weightless for a few seconds. By throwing the aircraft into an orbit-like path within Earth's atmosphere, you can enter the wonderful world of weightlessness.

It is one of the best ways to simulate the environment of space, and a valuable experimental tool for scientists with a special interest in microgravity.

If they want to find out how the brain works, study the natural posture of humans in space, or how water boils in a weightless environment, this is the way to do it. Take a journey into a free-floating world of the parabola in this edition of Space.

Greetings from NASA Astronaut Mike Hopkins

ESA Hubble Image: Snow Angel

A seasonal snow angel soars through the heavens in this beautiful ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a star-formation region identified as Sharpless 2-106, or S106. 

Appearances can be deceiving, however, as behind the delicate façade lies a devilish young star that is ejecting material at a furious rate, disrupting the gas and dust around it.

The central star has a mass of about 15 times that of our own Sun and is in the final stages of its formation.

The outstretched glowing blue wings are created from twin lobes of super-hot hydrogen gas spewing out from the star.

Temperatures here reach 10 000ºC, and contrast against the cool backdrop of interstellar space. A cold belt of dust, appearing red in this image, nearly obscures the central star from view, but it can just be seen peeking through.

Its faint light reflects off tiny dust particles throughout the scene, giving the blue wings the appearance of having red veins.

S106 is 2000 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus, and measures about 2 light-years across.

Astro-Photography: Cygnus Loop Filaments

As an end of the year finale, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and WIYN partners offer this new wide-field image of the Cygnus loop.

The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant: the gaseous remains of a massive star that exploded long ago.

It is located about 1,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

Astronomers estimate the supernova explosion that produced the nebula occurred between 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

First noted in 1784 by William Herschel, it is so large that its many parts have been catalogued as separate objects, including NGC 6992, NGC 6995 and IC 1340 along the eastern (left) side of the image, NGC 6974 and NGC 6979 near the top-center, and the Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) and Pickering’s Triangle along the western (right) edge.

The bright star near the western edge of the image, known as 52 Cygnus, is not associated with the supernova.

The data were obtained with the NOAO Mosaic 1 camera, with observations in the Oxygen [OIII] (blue), Sulphur [S II] (green) and Hydrogen-Alpha (red) filters.