Linguistic and Scientific
Harmonies of the Quran

This simulated image models the intensities of gamma rays with over 40 million times the energy of visible light, and represents how the sky might appear to the proposed Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) after its first year in orbit. Familiar steady stars are absent from the dramatic 80x80 degree field which looks directly away from the center of the Galaxy. Instead, the Geminga and Crab pulsars - bizarre, spinning stellar corpses known to be neutron stars - are the two brightest ga

Landing on Mars in January, NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity have now each spent over 330 sols roving the martian surface. Still healthy and well in to extended missions, the golfcart sized robots have operated five times longer than planned. Ranging across the floor of Gusev crater, the Spirit rover has reached the Columbia Hills and journeyed nearly four kilometers. Half a planet away, Opportunity has spent much of its tour on Meridiani Planum exploring the 130 meter wide Endurance Cr

Landing on Mars in January, NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity have now each spent over 330 sols roving the martian surface. Still healthy and well in to extended missions, the golfcart sized robots have operated five times longer than planned. Ranging across the floor of Gusev crater, the Spirit rover has reached the Columbia Hills and journeyed nearly four kilometers. Half a planet away, Opportunity has spent much of its tour on Meridiani Planum exploring the 130 meter wide Endurance Cr

Landing on Mars in January, NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity have now each spent over 330 sols roving the martian surface. Still healthy and well in to extended missions, the golfcart sized robots have operated five times longer than planned. Ranging across the floor of Gusev crater, the Spirit rover has reached the Columbia Hills and journeyed nearly four kilometers. Half a planet away, Opportunity has spent much of its tour on Meridiani Planum exploring the 130 meter wide Endurance Cr

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's nurturing atmosphere. A clear high altitude layer, visible along the days

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's nurturing atmosphere. A clear high altitude layer, visible along the days

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's nurturing atmosphere. A clear high altitude layer, visible along the days

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning top toy with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about 1 Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on board the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. Now settling in to explore Bennu from orbit, the OSIRIS-REx mission is expected to deliver samples of the aster

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning top toy with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about 1 Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on board the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. Now settling in to explore Bennu from orbit, the OSIRIS-REx mission is expected to deliver samples of the aster

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning top toy with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about 1 Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on board the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. Now settling in to explore Bennu from orbit, the OSIRIS-REx mission is expected to deliver samples of the aster

It's northern noctilucent cloud season -- perhaps a time to celebrate! Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds may become visible at sunset during late summer when illuminated by sunlight from below. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds known and now established to be polar mesospheric clouds observed from the ground. Although observed with NASA's AIM satellite since 2007, much about noctilucent clouds remains unkn

It's northern noctilucent cloud season -- perhaps a time to celebrate! Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds may become visible at sunset during late summer when illuminated by sunlight from below. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds known and now established to be polar mesospheric clouds observed from the ground. Although observed with NASA's AIM satellite since 2007, much about noctilucent clouds remains unkn

It's northern noctilucent cloud season -- perhaps a time to celebrate! Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds may become visible at sunset during late summer when illuminated by sunlight from below. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds known and now established to be polar mesospheric clouds observed from the ground. Although observed with NASA's AIM satellite since 2007, much about noctilucent clouds remains unkn

What stars shine in Earth's northern hemisphere during winter? The featured image highlights a number of bright stars visible earlier this month. The image is a 360-degree horizontal-composite panorama of 66 vertical frames taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location at about 2:30 am. Famous stars visible in the picture include Castor & Pollux toward the southeast on the left, Sirius just over the horizon toward the south, Capella just over the arch of the Milky Way Galax

What stars shine in Earth's northern hemisphere during winter? The featured image highlights a number of bright stars visible earlier this month. The image is a 360-degree horizontal-composite panorama of 66 vertical frames taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location at about 2:30 am. Famous stars visible in the picture include Castor & Pollux toward the southeast on the left, Sirius just over the horizon toward the south, Capella just over the arch of the Milky Way Galax