A Space Station Crosses a Busy Sun

The International Space Station is only visible at night. The International Space Station can be seen as a bright spot in the night sky several times a year. After sunset or before sunrise, the International Space Station is visible only because it shines by reflected sunlight, and it will fall out of sight once it enters the Earth's shadow. When the sun is in front of the ISS is the only time it is visible during the day. Only cameras that take short exposures can freeze the silhouette of the International Space Station on the Sun. A series of images taken earlier this month from Beijing, China are the featured picture. This image series was combined with other images taken at the same time to highlight the activity on the Sun. There were numerous gaseous prominences seen around the edge, highlighted in red, and a dark sunspot.

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Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Large Magellanic Cloud is visible on the upper right of many images of the home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Hubble Space Telescope took the featured image for scientific purposes. The entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to the Tarantula Nebula. Young stars are visible around the image. A recent study of variable stars in the LMC with Hubble has helped to calibrate the distance scale of the observable universe, but resulted in a slightly different scale than found using the pervasive Cosmic Microwave Background.