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Image: Summer Solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire

Space

Month in Space Pictures: June 2017

NASA's new astronauts, stargazing in South Africa, a satellite flash and more of the best space pictures of June 2017.

/ 22 PHOTOS
Image: Rocket launch

Rocket Trail

An Ariane 5 rocket carrying two satellites lifts off from the space center in Kourou, French Guiana on June 1, 2017

Jody Amiet / AFP - Getty Images
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Blue

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet posted this photo to his Flickr page from the International Space Station on June 3 with the simple caption, "Bleu."

 

Thomas Pesquet / ESA
Image: Novitskiy, Pesquet

Packed In

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, left, and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet sit in the Soyuz space capsule as they prepare for their return home from the space station. 

Jack Fischer / NASA
Image: ***BESTPIX*** KAZAKHSTAN-RUSSIA-FRANCE-ISS-LANDING ***BESTPIX*** ***BESTPIX***

Coming Home

The Soyuz space capsule carrying Oleg Novitskiy and Thomas Pesquet descends beneath a parachute just before landing in a remote area of Kazakhstan on June 2. 

Shamil Zhumatov / AFP - Getty Images
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Soft Landing

Search and rescue teams approach the capsule carrying Oleg Novitsky and Thomas Pesquet after it landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan, ending their six-month mission to the International Space Station. 

Pesquet is France's tenth citizen to orbit Earth and the country's third crewmember to live on the space station.

Shamil Zhumatov / AP
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Tiny Moon

Mimas is visible as a mere speck, upper right, beside the gas giant Saturn in this image captured by the Cassini spacecraft released on June 5. 

At 246 miles across, Mimas is considered a medium-sized moon, large enough for its own gravity to have made it round. 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Flyby Target

Scientists position their telescope beside a small church in the Karoo desert in South Africa on the morning of June 3.

They were one of at least 54 observing teams with dozens of telescopes dispatched across two continents, positioned to catch a rare, two-second glimpse of a small, distant Kuiper Belt object passing in front of a star. Teams were hoping to capture the fleeting starlit shadow of 2014 MU69, which the New Horizons spacecraft will explore in a flyby on New Year’s Day 2019.

Henry Throop / NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
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Obstructed View

U.S. astronaut Jack Fischer tweeted this image from the space station on June 3, commenting "Never had a corner office with a view, but I must admit, I like it... a lot! "

Jack Fischer / NASA
Image: Orion human spacecraft testing

Cone of Fire

Plumes of smoke erupt from the floor of the Utah desert on June 15, during testing for the rocket motor for NASA's next-generation Orion human spacecraft. 

The motor will be part of the Orion abort launch system, which would jettison the crew capsule to safety if something went wrong with the primary rocket during launch.

Orbital ATK
Image: US NASA astronauts

New Astronauts

The 2017 NASA astronaut candidates pose for group photo while getting fitted for flight suits at Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on June 7.

After receiving a record-breaking number of applications, NASA selected its largest astronaut class since 2000. Out of over 18,300 applicants, NASA chose these five women and seven men as the agency’s new astronaut candidates. In August, they will begin two years of basic training.

Front row: Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Robb Kulin, Jessica Watkins, Loral O'Hara

Back row: Jonny Kim, Frank Rubio, Matthew Dominick, Warren Hoburg, Kayla Barron, Bob Hines, Raja Chari

AFP - Getty Images
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Next Space Generation

Vice President Mike Pence signs a hatch from a space station training module mockup on June 7 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA chose 12 new astronauts Wednesday from its biggest pool of applicants ever, selecting seven men and five women who could one day fly aboard the nation's next generation of spacecraft.

Bill Ingalls / AP
Image: Jupiter

Jupiter Contrast

NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image on May 19 from about 29,100 miles above the cloud tops. The spacecraft was over 65.9 degrees south latitude, with a view of the south polar region of the planet.

Four of the white oval storms known as the "String of Pearls" are visible near the top of the image. Interestingly, one orange-colored storm can be seen at the belt-zone boundary, while other storms are more of a cream color.

This image was released by NASA on June 16.

NASA
Image: Turquoise swirls in the Black Sea

Phytoplankton Bloom

Multiple satellites show the phytoplankton bloom in the Black Sea on May 29. The turquoise swirls indicate the presence of phytoplankton, which trace the flow of water currents and eddies. Waters of the Bosphorus have changed color transforming it from a deep blue to a turquoise due to a phytoplankton bloom.

This image was released by NASA on June 16.

Norman Kuring/NASA / EPA
Image: A commercial airplane flies past the moon above Geneva

Taking Flight

A commercial jet flies past a waning half moon above Geneva on June 17.

Valentin Flauraud / EPA
Image: Saturn's moon

Grooves and Kinks in the Rings

Many of the features seen in Saturn's rings are shaped by the planet's moons. NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures two different effects of moons that cause waves in the A ring and kinks in the F ring of Saturn on March 22.

The A ring, on the left side, displays waves caused by orbital resonances with moons that orbit beyond the rings. Kinks, clumps and other structures in the F ring on the right can be caused by interactions between the ring particles and the moon Prometheus, which orbits just interior to the ring, as well as collisions between small objects within the ring itself.

This image was released by NASA on June 20.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Image: Summer Solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire

Summer Solstice

Crowds gather to celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England on June 21. Modern druids and visitors meet at the landmark every year to see the sun rise on the first morning of summer.

Chris J Ratcliffe / AFP - Getty Images
Image: Saturn's moon

Northern Summer on Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn's moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole on June 9. The Cassini obtained the view at a distance of about 315,000 miles from Titan.

Compared to earlier in the Cassini's mission, most of the surface in the moon's northern high latitudes is now illuminated by the sun.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Image: The Milky Way seen during summer night sky

Milky Way

An iridium satellite flashes on the night sky from the vicinity of Repashuta, Hungary on June 15.

Month in Space Pictures: May 2017

Peter Komka / EPA
Image: SCIENCE-ASTRONOMY-BIOLOGY

Molecule Discovery

A wide-field view of a spectacular region of dark and bright clouds forms part of a region of star formation in the constellation of Ophiuchus on June 8.

Two teams of astronomers said they have, for the first time, detected a key chemical building block of life swirling around infant stars that resemble our Sun before its planets formed. The molecule, methyl isocyanate, "plays an essential role in the formation of proteins, which are basic ingredients for life," said Victor Rivilla, a scientist at the Astrophysics Observatory in Florence, Italy, and co-author of a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

AFP / ESO / Digitized Sky Survey 2 / Davide de Martin
Image: Falcon 9 SpaceX lift off

Lift Off

A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket carrying a communications satellite that will provide television broadcast and data communications services over southeast Europe lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 23.

John Raoux / AP
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