Planet Earth, Space Research

Hurricane Elena, with wind speeds in excess of 177 km/h, was photographed in the Gulf of Mexico in 1985. Almost the entire storm can be seen in this high-oblique photograph. For instance, a number of thunderstorms with their overshooting tops, the spiral bands of numerous thunderstorms leading to the eye of the hurricane, and numerous cloud gravity waves within the spiral bands can be seen. Some portions of the eye wall, where the most destructive winds of the storm occur, are also visible. This storm eventually made landfall near Gulfport, Mississippi (NASA).

A rose made of galaxies by the Hubble Space Telescope. The distorted shape of the larger of the two galaxies shows signs of tidal interactions with the smaller of the two. It is thought that the smaller galaxy has actually passed through the larger one.

A line of thunderclouds marching past the Al Qassim region of central Saudi Arabia. These storm clouds made their way south and were likely related to heavy rainfall and deadly flooding in Yemen on April 13-14, 2016 (International Space Station/NASA).

Hubble image of an expanding halo of light around a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis, about 20,000 years-light from Earth. This impressive shape is caused by the red supergiant star at the middle of the image.

NASA completed stacking October 21, 2021, of the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I uncrewed mission around the Moon. The stacking operations were conducted inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.