Space Gallery

Us-Magnetic Field

This picture is a false color image of the transparent, electrified gas (plasma) trapped inside Earth's magnetic field taken by NASA's Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft on 11 August, 2000. The IMAGE spacecraft is looking down at the Earth from above the north pole, and the globe or sphere in the center represents the position and size of the Earth. The image (top) is the ultraviolet glow from relatively cold plasma as seen by the Extreme Ultraviolet imager (EUV) instrument on board IMAGE. A hook-shaped "tail" of plasma streaming toward the Sun can be seen at the top left of the picture. Note also the small, faint circle near the center of the image - this is the ultraviolet glow from the aurora, also known as the northern lights. AFP PHOTO/NASA
/ AFP PHOTO / NASA

© Agence France-Presse (AFP) - All Rights Reserved

Us-Earths Moon

This 09 December, 1990 color image of the Moon was taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft at a range of about 350, 000 miles. At the upper right is the large, dark Oceanus Procellarum; below it is the smaller Mare Humorum. These, like the small dark Mare Orientale in the center of the basin, formed over 3 billion years ago as basaltic lava flows. At the lower left, among the southern cratered highlands of the far side, is the South-Pole-Aitken basin, similar to Orientale but twice as great in diameter and much older and more degraded by cratering and weathering. The cratered highlands of the near and far sides and the Maria are covered with scattered bright, young ray craters. AFP PHOTO/ NASA / AFP PHOTO / NASA / NASA

© Agence France-Presse (AFP) - All Rights Reserved

Us-Helios Prototype 2

This November, 1999 NASA file photo taken from the NASA Internet site 26 June, 2001 shows the solar-powered Helios prototype in flight over a lake bed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California. NASA plans to send the 15 million USD, solar-powered experimental plane into the skies over Hawaii sometime in July, achieving speeds no faster than a bicycle, powered by 14 electric motors not much stronger than hair dryers.
NASA has billed the unmanned, remotely piloted Helios as the first step toward an aircraft that will soar at 100, 000 feet -- or 20, 000 feet above the current record for a propeller-drive airplane and more than three times higher than commercial jets routinely travel. AFP PHOTO/Tom Tschida / AFP PHOTO / NASA/DFRC / TOM TSCHIDA

© Agence France-Presse (AFP) - All Rights Reserved