This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine!
🌟

Our @NASAHubble Space Telescope spotted a galaxy with its mix of bright patches of glowing gas,
dark lanes of dust,
bright core,
and whirling,
pinwheeling arms coming together to paint a beautiful celestial scene.

Located
around 50 million light-years away in the constellation of Antlia (the Air Pump),
this galaxy is a member of galaxy groups -
some of the most common galactic gatherings in the cosmos,
and they comprise 50 or so galaxies all bound together by gravity.

Image credit:
ESA/Hubble &
NASA,
D.
Rosario et al.
#nasa #hubble #shinebright #cosmos #galaxy

Bask in the beauty of the cryosphere ❄️⁣
⁣
Our Operation IceBridge mission sent flights across regions of the Arctic and Antarctic from 2009 to 2019,
gathering data on ice elevation until the successful launch of IceSat-2,
our current ice-measuring satellite.
Among many accomplishments,
the team mapped 200 glaciers along Greenland’s coastal areas over their decade of work,
as well as coastal areas,
the interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet and high-priority areas in Antarctica.
The hundreds of terabytes of data on changing ice sheets the team collected will fuel science for years to come.
Swipe through for a selection of some of the most striking photographs taken by the IceBridge team.
⁣
⁣
Images 1,4 Credit:
Michael Studinger Image 3,7 Credit:
NASA/Maria-Jose Viñas Images 2,5,8 Credit:
NASA/John Sonntag Image 6 Credit:
NASA Image 9 Credit:
NASA/Jim Yungel Image 10 Credit:
NASA/Joe MacGregor⁣
⁣ #ice #nasa #antarctica #arctic #greenland #cryosphere

“For once I’m flying higher than a bar-headed goose.”⁣
⁣
Before Jessica Meir (@astro_jessica)
was an astronaut on board the International Space Station (@ISS),
she studied comparative physiology at the University of British Columbia.
As a part of her research,
she hand-raised a dozen bar-headed geese —
the highest-flying birds on the planet.
Twice a year,
these extraordinary creatures migrate from China and Mongolia to India.
Their 5,000-mile (~8,000 km)
journey takes them across the Himalayas,
which Meir has captured here from space.
⁣
⁣
Image Credit:
NASA /
Jessica Meir⁣
⁣ #NASA #Earth #Himalayas