A reproduction of a portion of the lunar surface was constructed on the concrete pad where the Lunar Excursion Module Simulator (LEMS) was tested at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The LEMS was a manned rocket-powered vehicle used to familiarize the Apollo astronaut with the handling characteristics of a lunar-landing type vehicle. The vehicle was designed and fabricated at Langley.
The Cone Nebula, a gaseous pillar in the Milky Way Galaxy is about 2,500 light-years away. The Cone Nebula is part of a larger star-forming region.
Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail.
The sun sets as Space Shuttle Discovery arrives on the hardstand of Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2006. At right are the fixed and rotating service structures. Discovery was the third space shuttle to become operational, and is the oldest orbiter in service.
Researchers do not yet know what is lighting up IRAS 05437+2502, a small, faint nebula that spans only 1/18th of a full moon toward the constellation of the Taurus. Particularly enigmatic is the bright upside-down V that defines the upper edge of this floating mountain of interstellar dust.
This artist's concept from 1982 depicts an astronaut preparing to "dock" with the Solar Maximus Mission Satellite, using the manned maneuvering unit (MMU) backpack apparatus.
Two spectacular tails of X-ray emission have been seen trailing behind a galaxy using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627 shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light - known to astronomers as 'H-alpha' - in red.
This artist's concept depicts a new extrasolar planet disovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble has peered at 180,000 stars in the crowded central bulge of our galaxy 26,000 light-years away or one-quarter the diameter of the Milky Way's spiral disk.
Test subject Fred Spross, Crew Systems Division, wears the Gemini 9 configured extravehicular spacesuit assembly. The legs are covered with Chromel R, which is a cloth woven from stainless steel fibers, used to protect the astronaut and suit from the hot exhaust thrust of the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit.
This is a new composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. The three views of the region were taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2006, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Nov. 2003, and NRAO's Very Large Array in Oct. 2004. The Hubble image shows dozens of galaxies bound together by gravity.
Riot police advanced on protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square shortly after Prime Minister Erdogan warned the peaceful demonstrators to clear out or be forcibly removed.
Riot police fired water cannons and tear gas on protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square and neighboring Gezi Park on Saturday, an intervention that came shortly after the prime minister warned that security forces "know how to clear" the area.
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