The American flag patch pictured here is from the left arm on Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 suit. This image was taken in April 2006 at the National Air and Space Museum’s Garber Facility in Suitland, Md.

NASA astronauts Leroy Chiao, Edward Michael Fincke and Greg Chamitoff have all voted while aboard the International Space Station thanks to a bill passed in 1997 by Texas legislatures. The bill sets up a technical procedure for astronauts – nearly all of whom live in Houston – to vote from space.

Current station Commander Suni Williams, a Florida resident, voted via absentee ballot before departing for her duties as part of Expedition 32 on the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/RdtFkv

A stream of plasma burst out from the sun, but since it lacked enough force to break away, most of it fell back into the sun (May 27, 2014). The video, seen in a combination of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, covers a little over two hours. This eruption was minor and such events occur almost every day on the sun and suggest the kind of dynamic activity being driven by powerful magnetic forces near the sun’s surface.
› View ‘Spurting Plasma’ video
Image credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory via NASA http://ift.tt/1vu9bYg

In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart). The dunes are aligned to the prevailing winds that generated them, which typically blow from east to west. Where linear dunes converge, dune confluences point downwind. When you fly over such dune fields-either in an airplane or the International Space Station-the fire scars stand out. Where thin vegetation has been burned, the dunes appear red from the underlying sand; dunes appear darker where the vegetation remains.

Astronaut photograph ISS035-E-9454 was acquired on March 25, 2013, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 400 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 35 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.

Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/16ImN3K

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, Expedition 36 flight engineer, uses a digital still camera during a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as work continues on the International Space Station. A little more than one hour into the spacewalk on July 16, 2013, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano (out of frame) reported water floating behind his head inside his helmet. The water was not an immediate health hazard for Parmitano, but Mission Control decided to end the spacewalk early.
Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/18kVCzh

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft launches from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41, Monday, Nov. 18, 2013, Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA’s Mars-bound spacecraft, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via NASA http://ift.tt/HWZSwc

A powerful storm passed over New Zealand’s South Island in March 2014 and brought gale-force winds, torrential rains, and flooding to the city of Christchurch. A total of 74 millimeters (3 inches) of rain fell on March 4-5, according to MetService, New Zealand’s national meteorological service. More than 100 homes flooded and more than 4,000 lost power around the country’s third most populous city. Skies had cleared enough by March 6, 2014, for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite to acquire this image showing the aftermath.
Coastal communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the risk of damage and danger from flooding. NASA and NOAA are together launching a new opportunity for citizens to work with us on the very important topic of coastal flooding. This coastal flooding challenge is part of NASA’s third International Space Apps Challenge – a two-day global mass collaboration event on April 12-13, 2014. During these two days, citizens around the world are invited to engage directly with NASA to develop awe-inspiring software, hardware, and data visualizations. Last year’s event involved more than 9,000 global participants in 83 locations. This year will introduce more than 60 robust challenges clustered in five themes: asteroids, Earth watch, human spaceflight, robotics, and space technology. The Coastal Inundation In Your Community challenge is one of four climate-related challenges using data provided by NASA, NOAA and EPA.
> 2014 International Space Apps Challenge: Coastal Inundation in Your Community
> NASA Invites Citizens to Collaborate on Coastal Flooding Challenge
Image Credit: NASA – Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC via NASA http://ift.tt/PTSAOh

The Helios-A solar probe launched on Dec. 10, 1974 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

As it looped around the Sun in an orbit that took it from Earth’s orbit (1 AU from the Sun) to about 0.3 AU from the Sun and back again, Helios-A studied the solar wind, magnetic and electric fields, cosmic rays, and dust in interplanetary space. It flew within 47 million km of the Sun at a speed of 238,000 km per hour, the closest any human-made object had been. Its data indicated the presence of 15 times more micrometeorites close to the Sun than there are near Earth.

Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/RWFBuE

Expedition 40 Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency posted this photograph of windswept valleys in Northern Africa, taken from the International Space Station, to social media on July 6, 2014.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) regularly photograph the Earth from their unique point of view located 200 miles above the surface. These photographs help to record how the planet is changing over time, from human-caused changes like urban growth and reservoir construction, to natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions.
Image Credit: Alexander Gerst/ESA/NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1jgM55F

NASA’s remotely piloted X-48C hybrid-wing-body subscale aircraft, which demonstrates technology concepts for cleaner and quieter commercial air travel, completed an eight-month flight research campaign on April 9, 2013.

In this image, the aircraft flies over the intersection of several runways adjacent to the compass rose on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base during one of the sub-scale aircraft’s final test flights on Feb. 28, 2013.

The scale-model aircraft, shaped like a manta ray, was designed by The Boeing Co., built by Cranfield Aerospace Limited of the United Kingdom, and flown in partnership with NASA. The X-48C is a version of NASA’s X-48B blended wing body aircraft modified to evaluate the low-speed stability and control of a low-noise version of a notional hybrid-wing-body design. This design features a flattened fuselage with no tail, and engines mounted on top of the fuselage at the rear of the plane. The design stems from concept studies for commercial aircraft that could be flying within 20 years. The studies are under way in NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project.

Image Credit: NASA / Carla Thomas via NASA http://ift.tt/ZuRh65

A crane lifts NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Aug. 3, 2013, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft was flown to Kennedy Space Center for launch processing from Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado near the Lockheed Martin facility in Littleton, Colo., where it was built. MAVEN is to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in November, 2013 to begin a 10-month voyage to Mars. It is the first mission dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere and scientists hope to find traces of the ancient environment thought to have existed there.
Image Credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs via NASA http://ift.tt/1bbZ5Bh