Monday, January 2, 2023

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

First Martian Sample Tube
A titanium tube containing a rock sample is resting on the Red Planet’s surface after being placed there on Dec. 21 by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Filled with rock, the sample tube will be one of 10 forming a depot of tubes that could be considered for a journey to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Triple Yeet
A trio of CubeSats (TUMnanoSAT, FUTABA, and HSU-SAT1) designed for education and research programs are pictured moments after their deployment from a small satellite deployer (top right) positioned outside the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) as the International Space Station orbits 259 miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Latest Io Image
The JunoCam instrument aboard the Mission Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io on Dec. 14, 2022, from a distance of about 64,000 kilometers. More images from the flyby will be available in the coming weeks.

Thursday, January 5, 2023

Earth by Danuri Spacecraft
These two pictures were taken with a high resolution camera mounted on South Korea's Danuri spacecraft, which was launched in August 2022 and arrived in lunar orbit in December. The nearly full Earth was taken 24 December, 344 km above the lunar surface. The quarter Earth was taken on 28 December, 124 km from the surface. Danuri, a lunar orbiter, will begin science operations in February 2023.

Friday, January 6, 2023

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by astronomers using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in early March 2022. This fine telescopic image from December 19 does show the comet's brighter greenish coma, short broad dust tail, and long faint ion tail stretching across a 2.5 degree wide field-of-view.