Sofiane.SED retweeted
Happy 91st birthday to Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, the 10th man to walk on the Moon! 🎂
Duke was the CAPCOM in Mission Control as Apollo 11 landed on the lunar surface on July 20, 1929. He said that his anxiety in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing was worse than that he experienced during the Apollo 16 landing. We wish him many happy landings in the days ahead!
Sofiane.SED retweeted
Imagine combining Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
That was about the size of the Mars dust storm seen by Hubble in 2005. It's the bright, orange-red portion near the center: go.nasa.gov/3TcLvhb

ALT The planet Mars is pictured against black space, with the majority of the lower hemisphere's surface to appear brown. The top half of the planet looks mostly bright orange, with faint blue water-ice clouds at the north pole. A dust storm appears as a brighter, redder cloudy region in the middle of the planet's disk.
Sofiane.SED retweeted
Seeing double… or quadruple! 👀
In this Webb image of galaxy cluster MACS J0454.1-0300, gravitational lensing shows us 4 or more images of the same galaxy. This is the first time researchers have spotted this more than once in the same galaxy cluster!
esawebb.org/images/potm2609a…

ALT A massive galaxy cluster, made of many golden elliptical galaxies with the largest, brightest one in the center. Heavily distorted orange galaxies appear all around the cluster, the largest concentrated in a large arc around the cluster's center; these are images of very distant galaxies, created by gravitational lensing. A few galaxies are large and bluish-white in color; bright, nearby stars are the same color.
Sofiane.SED retweeted
Mars, sol 1932 captured by NASA's nuclear-powered rover.
This is 140 million miles away from us!
The Moon base will be even more epic
Many have asked how this photo was made. This is my explanation.
The ISS rotates about its pitch axis as it orbits Earth at 17,000mph to keep its nadir view constant. Because of this long exposure photography turns stars into arced lines.
Sidereal clock drives on Earth match the planet's rotation to see stars clearly. I knew one designed for space could do this too.
So a camera mount was custom built at @RITtigers to rotate once every 90 minutes using a 60 to 90 toothed gear system, cancelling out the orbital motion of ISS and allowing the capture of distant stars as fixed points!
In essence, it is a a rotational coil spring powered analog star tracker. It was machined out of aluminum and is entirely mechanical to bypass NASA's strict electrical requirements for cargo. We had to get creative!
After Expedition 72 it was safely returned to Earth and is to be displayed at RIT. Which I am pleased to say because a similar barn door tracker I made from spare parts on Expedition 6 for nighttime city photography was destroyed in an atmospheric trash disposal!
Photography is an important part of sharing the journey to new frontiers for all people of Earth!
Sofiane.SED retweeted
Testing Galileo's law of motion on the Moon!
55 years ago today, Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott performed his feather and hammer experiment on the Moon, demonstrating that without air resistance all objects fall at the same rate.
Sofiane.SED retweeted
Wishing the summer heat would fade? It could be worse! The dayside of one of the hottest planets known, KELT-9 b, is hotter than the surfaces of some stars. #MondayMotivation
Sofiane.SED retweeted
The dazzling star-forming region RCW 108 glows brightly in the constellation Ara.
(Credit: ESO)
Sofiane.SED retweeted
🚀🌌 Voyager 1 has left the Sun's protective bubble—the heliosphere—and is now traveling through interstellar space, over 25 billion km from Earth.
Launched in 1977, it's the most distant human-made object ever. Yet even after nearly 50 years, it isn't close to another star. At its current speed, reaching the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, would take tens of thousands of years.
A humbling reminder of both human curiosity and the unimaginable scale of the universe. ✨


































