The Voyager 1 aboard the Titan III/Centaur lifted off on September 5, 1977, joining its sister spacecraft, the Voyager 2, on a mission to the outer planets. via NASA http://ift.tt/2gJoEad

MCG+01-38-005 (below) is a special kind of megamaser; the galaxy’s active galactic nucleus pumps out huge amounts of energy, stimulating clouds of surrounding water. via NASA http://ift.tt/2epVgS0

NASA engineers closed a summer of successful hot fire testing Aug. 30 for flight controllers on RS-25 engines that will help power the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket being built to carry astronauts to deep-space destinations, including Mars. via NASA http://ift.tt/2xyYAm6

NASA’s Operation IceBridge is flying its summer Arctic land ice campaign in Greenland, continuing its measurements of the Greenland Ice Sheet and its outlet glaciers. This photograph from the mission was taken on Aug. 29, 2017, from 28,000 feet, looking north while surveying Nioghalvfjerdsbrae (79 N) Glacier in northeast Greenland. via NASA http://ift.tt/2x5KGKi

Gemini V command pilot Gordon Cooper (right) and Charles “Pete” Conrad, pilot, walk across the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain following their spacecraft’s recovery from the ocean on Aug. 29, 1965. The eight-day Gemini V endurance mission doubled America’s spaceflight record set two months earlier. via NASA http://ift.tt/2x1awPF

A NASA F-18 jet takes off from the agency’s Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 23, 2017. The F-18 jets fly at supersonic speeds while agency researchers measure the effects of low-altitude turbulence caused by sonic booms, part of NASA’s Sonic Booms in Atmospheric Turbulence, or SonicBAT II Program. via NASA http://ift.tt/2xGKj62

On August 25, 2017, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer photographed Hurricane Harvey from the cupola module aboard the International Space Station as it intensified on its way toward the Texas coast. The Expedition 52 crew on the station has been tracking this storm for the past two days and capturing Earth observation photographs and videos. via NASA http://ift.tt/2wOiueR

It was spring in the Northern hemisphere when this image was taken on May 21, 2017, by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Over the winter, snow and ice have inexorably covered the dunes. Unlike on Earth, this snow and ice is carbon dioxide, better known to us as dry ice. via NASA http://ift.tt/2wBqmRy

As millions of people across the United States experienced a total eclipse as the umbra, or moon’s shadow passed over them, only six people witnessed the umbra from space. The space station crossed the path of the eclipse three times as it orbited above the continental United States at an altitude of 250 miles. via NASA http://ift.tt/2v5PxeW

Cassini gazes across the icy rings of Saturn toward the icy moon Tethys, whose night side is illuminated by Saturnshine, or sunlight reflected by the planet. via NASA http://ift.tt/2w11uQk