The glow of the Milky Way arcs across a sea of stars...
and planets!
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This panorama of the southern sky was created with 208 images from a year of observations by our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
mission.
Swipe through the images to see TESS's discoveries:
first,
the host stars of 29 confirmed exoplanets (worlds beyond our solar system),
and second,
more than 1,000 candidate planets astronomers are now investigating.
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To find exoplanets,
the four TESS cameras capture a full sector of the sky every 30 minutes to search for transits.
Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its host star from our perspective,
briefly and regularly dimming its light.
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Images Credit:
NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA)⁣
⁣ #milkyway #nightsky #panorama #exoplanets #stars

Not all galaxies are lonely.
Some have galaxy squads.
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NGC 1706,
captured in this image by @NASAHubble,
belongs to something known as a galaxy group,
which is just as the name suggests —
a group of up to 50 galaxies which are gravitationally bound and relatively close to each other.
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Our home galaxy,
the Milky Way,
has its own squad —
known as the Local Group,
which also contains the Andromeda galaxy,
the Large and Small Magellanic clouds and the Triangulum galaxy.
Click the link in the bio for more info ⬆️⁣
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Image credit:
ESA/Hubble &
NASA,
A.
Bellini et al.⁣ #galaxy #squadgoals #hubble #cosmos #universe

Waving goodbye to a spacecraft.
👋

Astronaut Christina Koch used the robotic arm on the International Space Station (@ISS)
to release Japan's "Kounotori"
HTV cargo ship on Nov.
1,
after it spent 34 days attached to the station's Harmony module.
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Launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on Sept.
24,
Kounotori,
meaning “white stork”
in Japanese,
delivered about five tons of supplies and science experiments as well as new lithium-ion batteries to the station.
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"Gone but not forgotten!,"
wrote Koch.
"Watching the HTV cargo ship depart Space Station⁣
today and remembering the complex dance of the robotic arm that marked the beginning of its stay."
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Image Credit:
NASA⁣
⁣ #spaceship #spacestation #sunrise #jaxa #goodbye