IOPList.Org

NOV 1 2015, 9:10 AM ET

Space records were broken this month while
'massive' Hurricane Patricia crossed the Atlantic and a dazzling aurora loomed over Earth.


15 Photos


01. Astronaut Scott Kelly returns to the
International Space Station, or ISS, after a spacewalk on Oct. 29.

"Still trying to wrap my head around why we call it #spacewalk, not spacework," Kelly commented his twitter post the following day.

On Thursday Kelly broke a new record. He has officially spent more time in space on a single
mission than any American astronaut in history.

When his mission ends, Kelly will have spent a
grand total of 342 days orbiting Earth on the
ISS.



02. Massive canyons and fractures are clearly
visible on Charon, a moon which is more than
half of Pluto’s size, in this enhanced color photo released on Oct. 1.

The piano-sized New Horizons probe zoomed
past Pluto and its moons in July but because of
the vast distance it will take 16 months to
transmit all the data from the flyby.



03. Martian sand dunes form a crescent in this
image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter released on Oct. 12. NASA uses images
such as this to study erosion, movement of
surface material and weather patterns on Mars.



04. The Milky Way arches above the European
Southern Observatory as dawn approaches in
the Chilean Atacama Desert in this photo
released on Oct. 28, 2015.



05. Part of a huge dust and gas cloud known as the Coalsack Nebula is seen in this photo
captured by the La Silla Observatory in Chile
and released on Oct. 12. The dust in this nebula absorbs and scatters the light from background stars.

---

06. Stargazers stand with their telescopes during an open-air astronomy class in the Samalayuca Desert on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Oct. 23. Locals broke the Guinness record with the largest number of participants in an astronomy lesson. 1,168 people participated, breaking the previous record held by Shire of Kalamunda in Australia with 1104 participants, according to local media.



07. An aurora looms over Earth in a photo taken by astronaut Scott Kelly from the ISS on Oct. 7.



08. Former astronaut Mark Kelly, left, gives
himself a flu shot at the Johnson Space Center
in Houston on Oct. 3 during testing in support of the Twin Studies.

The vaccination is part of NASA's study of
identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly
as Scott spends a year aboard the International Space Station and Mark remains on Earth.

At right, Scott gives himself a flu shot aboard the space station on Sept. 24.



09. The barred spiral galaxy NGC 4639 lies over 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo in this image released on Oct. 16. NGC 4639 is one of about 1500 galaxies that make up the Virgo Cluster and conceals a massive black hole that is consuming the surrounding gas, according to a NASA news release.



10. This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars
rover shows the "Big Sky" site, where its drill
collected the mission's fifth taste of Mount
Sharp. The photo is a mosaic of images taken
on Oct. 6 by a camera on the rover’s robotic
arm.

---

11. President Obama delivers remarks at the second White House Astronomy Night on Oct. 19. The event brought together students,
teachers, scientist and NASA astronauts for a
night of stargazing and space-related
educational activities to promote the importance of science, technology, engineering and math education.



12. Hurricane Patricia approaches Mexico in this image posted on astronaut Scott Kelly's Twitter feed on Oct. 23. "It's massive. Be careful," he included.



13. Pluto's haze layer shows its blue color in this picture released on Oct. 8. The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn's moon Titan.



14. From his perch aboard the International
Space Station, Scott Kelly has frequently
dazzled us with the views he's captured of the
Earth's surface.

The pictures can veer from subdued monochromes to startling explosions of color and often look like abstract art, a resemblance Kelly acknowledges with the hastag #EarthArt.
It's a great reminder of how diverse the Earth's topography is. In tweets posted Oct. 12 and 13, Kelly zeroed in on Australia, posting 17 pictures from a single pass over the continent.



15. Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, is a world divided into two different terrian types as captured by this Cassini mission photo released on Oct. 26.

The moon's nothern terrain is covered in impact craters, much like other icy moons, but the southern terrain is covered in long and linear fractures.

cool pictures IceWizard.

thanks for posting them