Save the date. At 10:00 UTC on 20 January 2014, ESA's comet-chasing #Rosetta spacecraft will wake up from 31 months in deep-space hibernation. Save the date and join the adventure. More info at www.esa.int/rosetta.

“The Earth is beautiful,” tweeted @AstroIllini. This Earth image was posted on Nov. 23 by astronaut Mike Hopkins from aboard the International Space Station.

The six-member Expedition 38 crew spent the week participating in biomedical experiments observing how the human body adapts to long duration missions in space. The crew collected blood, urine and saliva samples; performed ear and eye exams; and studied how a crew member moves in space.

CREDIT: NASA

#nasa #iss #spacestation #astronauts #earth #clouds #space #exp38

It’s Mars Day at NASA, and we’re launching our MAVEN spacecraft there at 1:28 p.m. EST. Forecasters predict a 60 percent chance for favorable weather during a two-hour launch window of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V-401 rocket.

MAVEN will take critical measurements of the Martian upper atmosphere to help scientists understand climate change over the Red Planet's history. MAVEN is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. It will orbit the planet in an elliptical orbit that allows it to pass through and sample the entire upper atmosphere on every orbit. The spacecraft will investigate how the loss of Mars' atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface.

This global mosaic of 102 Viking 1 Orbiter images of Mars was taken on orbit Feb. 22, 1980. The images are projected into point perspective, representing what a viewer would see from a spacecraft at an altitude of 2,500 km.

Image Credit: NASA

#nasa #space #ula #rocket #launch #rocketlaunch #launchpad #321launch #maven2mars #planets #science #solarsystem, #martian #maven #countdown

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