Stellary Starry Universe

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an adult osprey guards its young in a nest built on a platform in the press site parking lot, backdropped by the 209-foot by 110-foot American flag painted on the side of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge coexists with Kennedy Space Center and provides a habitat for 330 species of birds, including the osprey, and a variety of other wildlife. Kennedy’s press site is located at the turn basin in Launch Complex 39, making it an ideal osprey nesting place. Image Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint program by NASA and the German Aerospace Center, achieved a major milestone May 26, with its first in-flight night observations.

Ticks cause Lyme disease and many other ailments, but finding the little bloodsuckers by hand can be both disgusting and dangerous. Now there's a better way–via satellite.

Thilo Kranz, a staff member at DLR, the German Space Agency, took this image of the transit of the International Space Station ISS with Space Shuttle Atlantis during the STS-132 mission. Kranz photographed “the ISS as it passed across the solar disk in just 0.51 seconds …

At this time, preparations for undocking of space shuttle Atlantis during its final mission, STS-132, were ongoing. You can see the still docked shuttle in the 11 o’clock position. Also, you may recognise the solar panels and the large radiators.

In the full resolution version of this image, you can also see the Soyuz capsule. Close to the centre of the sun, a group of sunspots is visible.” Visit the DLR News Blog for more information. Image Credit: Thilo Kranz/DLR

Data from an ongoing survey by NASA’s Swift satellite have helped astronomers solve a decades-long mystery about why a small percentage of black holes emit vast amounts of energy.