Flames from the solid rocket boosters lit up the clouds of smoke and steam trailing behind shuttle Atlantis on May 19, 2000, as it lifted off on mission STS-101. It was the shuttle program’s third space station assembly flight, and first space flight for astronaut Jeff Williams, currently aboard the station as a member of the Expedition 47 crew. via NASA http://ift.tt/20aXPa5

Expedition 47 Flight Engineer Tim Kopra of NASA posted this May 15, 2016 photograph to social media, writing, “Water etchings in western @Mexico sands. @Space_Station #Explore” via NASA http://ift.tt/1rTZdCW

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) see the world at night on every orbit — that’s 16 times each crew day. An astronaut took this broad, short-lens photograph of Earth’s night lights while looking out over the remote reaches of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean. via NASA http://ift.tt/1rRGKHd

This photograph shows NASA’s newest Deep Space Network antenna, Deep Space Station 35 (DSS-35) in Canberra, Australia. The Deep Space Network is managed by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office, created on May 16, 2006. via NASA http://ift.tt/27setrc

Together with irregular galaxies, spiral galaxies make up approximately 60 percent of the galaxies in the local universe. However, despite their prevalence, each spiral galaxy is unique — like snowflakes, no two are alike. This is demonstrated by the striking face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6814. via NASA http://ift.tt/1TKk7dX

Operation IceBridge, NASA’s airborne survey of polar ice, has returned from the Umanaq B mission along Greenland’s western coast. This top-down view from a NOAA P-3 aircraft shows the calving front of Sermeq Kujatdleq glacier. The Naircraft’s #2 lower engine nacelle and left main landing gear fairing is in the foreground at top. via NASA http://ift.tt/220Oins

ESA astronaut Tim Peake photographed the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft as it undocked from the International Space Station on May 11, 2016. Scheduled to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 2:55 p.m. EDT, the spacecraft will return the final batch of human research samples from former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s historic one-year mission. via NASA http://ift.tt/1XlmJov

NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the clouds over Canada on May 9, 2016. Entwined within the clouds is the smoke billowing up from the wildfires that are currently burning across a large expanse of the country. via NASA http://ift.tt/1WniUAg

The planet Mercury is seen in silhouette, lower third of image, as it transits across the face of the sun Monday, May 9, 2016, as viewed from Boyertown, Pennsylvania. Mercury passes between Earth and the sun only about 13 times a century, with the previous transit taking place in 2006. via NASA http://ift.tt/1T6P1TE

Shown in this Hubble Space Telescope image, NGC 4394 is the archetypal barred spiral galaxy, with bright spiral arms emerging from the ends of a bar that cuts through the galaxy’s central bulge. These arms are peppered with young blue stars, dark filaments of cosmic dust, and bright, fuzzy regions of active star formation. via NASA http://ift.tt/1rZSvvv