A year after America’s first spacewalk, Gemini IX-A Eugene Cernan stepped outside his spacecraft for an ambitious extravehicular activity scheduled for 167 minutes. The challenges he faced led NASA to reevaluate plans, equipment, and training for future spacewalks.
During its 61st close flyby of Jupiter on May 12, 2024, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this color-enhanced view of the giant planet's northern hemisphere.
Astronauts Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Jack Hathaway of NASA, both Expedition 74 flight engineers, look out a window in the cupola.
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft flies above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, during testing focused on lower-speed and altitude flight conditions in support of NASA’s Quesst mission. NASA continues to include two-flight days in its envelope expansion as teams work to better understand how the aircraft responds throughout its operating range.
Katherine Rauscher, of Michigan Technological University, prepares her team’s prototype lunar robot for its turn during the finals for NASA’s 2026 Lunabotics Challenge competition on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, inside the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Forty-seven teams from around the U.S. designed and built remote-controlled robots capable of traversing challenging lunar terrain while constructing regolith-based berm under conditions similar to those the agency will face as it returns to the lunar surface through Artemis.
Chennai, on India's southern coast along the Bay of Bengal and with a metropolitan population of about 8.7 million, shines with white LED streetlights in this photograph taken at approximately 9:13 p.m. local time on May 2, 2026, from the International Space Station.
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveals the lenticular galaxy, NGC 1266. This enigmatic post-starburst galaxy has a bright center and a face that hints at spiral structure, yet it holds no discernable spiral arms.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, capturing images as it came within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This is an enhanced-color view of the large double-ring crater Huygens and the surrounding heavily cratered southern highlands.
The Moon and Venus, center, are seen in conjunction above the Washington Monument, Monday, May 18, 2026, as viewed from the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington.