APOD: 1996-02-24
Sixteen minutes after the liftoff of STS-29, the Space Shuttle Discovery's jettisoned External Tank (ET) is seen here, in a photograph by shuttle astronaut James P. Bagian, falling back towards Earth. The 154 foot long ET is the largest ...
APOD: 1996-02-23
Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin works on the first Lunar Roving Vehicle, before he and fellow astronaut David Scott take it out for a drive. Sloping up behind the lunar module "Falcon" on the left are lunar mountains Hadley Delta and Apennine ...
APOD: 1996-02-22
The lunar module shown above, named "Falcon," served as home for Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin during their stay on the Moon in July and August 1971. Meanwhile, astronaut Alfred Worden circled in the command module overhead. ...
APOD: 1996-02-21
Pictured above is the largest ball of stars in our Galaxy. About 10 million stars orbit the center of this globular cluster - named Omega Centauri - as this giant globular cluster orbits the center of our Galaxy. Recent evidence indicates that ...
APOD: 1996-02-20
Today marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA; renamed from Astro D when launched). ASCA, seen here superposed on galaxy M31, is a Japanese satellite for which NASA has provided ...
APOD: 1996-02-19
Comet Swift-Tuttle, shown above in false color, is the largest object known to make repeated passes near the Earth. It is also one of the oldest known periodic comets with sightings spanning two millennia. Last seen in 1862, its reappearance in ...
APOD: 1996-02-18
Are these galaxies near the center of the largest gravitationally bound concentration of mass yet known? Previously, the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 3627 was largely unstudied because dust in the disk of our own Galaxy obscured much of ...
APOD: 1996-02-17
No person in history has had greater impact in determining the extent of our universe than Edwin Hubble. From proving that other galaxies existed to proving that galaxies move apart from one another, Hubble's work defined our place in the cosmos. ...
APOD: 1996-02-16
What did our universe look like when it was young? To answer this, cosmologists run sophisticated computer programs tracking the locations of millions of particles. The above animated frame is the result of such a calculation and shows how our ...
APOD: 1996-02-15
citement mounts as NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft nears launch - currently scheduled for 3:53 ET on February 16. NEAR's mission is to become the first spacecraft to rendezvous with and orbit an asteroid, the asteroid ...
