Month in Space: July 2011

Spur King, from Armarillo, Texas, sleeps on the roof of a van in Titusville, Fla., as he waits to watch the liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July 8. Atlantis' launch marked the start of NASA's final space shuttle mission and the end of a 30-year era in spaceflight.

Rabbi Zvi Konikov of Satellite Beach Chabad in Brevard, Fla., prays at the press site at Kennedy Space Center before Atlantis' launch on July 8. A million people are thought to have witnessed the launch from the space center and its surroundings.

NASA managers watch from Firing Room Four of the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center as the space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Launch Pad 39A on July 8.

Spectators watch the shuttle Atlantis ascend for the last time from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 8.

Space shuttle Atlantis approaches the International Space Station for docking on July 10. Part of a Russian Progress spacecraft, also docked to the station, pokes into the upper foreground. The teal-colored shallows around the Bahamas can be seen in the background, about 250 miles below.

Spacewalker Ron Garan rides on the International Space Station's robotic arm as he transfers a failed pump module to the cargo bay of the space shuttle Atlantis on July 12, during the final spacewalk during a shuttle mission.

The space shuttle Atlantis blazes a trail back home through the atmosphere in this photograph, captured by the crew aboard the International Space Station on July 21. Airglow over Earth can be seen on the horizon.

The space shuttle Atlantis glides down from a moonlit sky to the runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. Atlantis' touchdown marked the end of a 30-year odyssey for NASA's shuttle fleet.

Commander Chris Ferguson, right, shakes hands with pilot Doug Hurley after landing the space shuttle Atlantis at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. Atlantis' other crew members, Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus, also face the cameras.

The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope provides an infrared view of a twisted ring of gas and dust at the center of our Milky Way galaxy The image, released July 19, poses a mystery for astronomers: Exactly what caused the bright ring to warp?

This image of the asteroid Vesta was captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on July 17, from a distance of about 9,500 miles. Dawn has begun a yearlong mission to study the asteroid from orbit. Then it will move on for a 2015 encounter with Ceres, a dwarf planet that is the largest object in the asteroid belt.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed its camera to capture a dramatic sunrise view of the moon's Tycho Crater on June 10. The resulting image, released June 30, highights Tycho's 9.3-mile-wide (15-kilometer-wide) central peak complex and its long, looming shadow. The summit is elevated 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) from the crater floor.

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, the galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, released July 20. Seen in infrared light, the faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk.

Two galaxies, about 50 million light-years away, are locked in a galactic embrace — literally. The Seyfert galaxy NGC 1097, in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is seen in this image taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. A smaller elliptical companion galaxy, NGC 1097A, cam be seen at top left. There is evidence that NGC 1097 and NGC 1097A have been interacting gravitationally in the recent past. The image was released on July 11 as ESO's "Picture of the Week."

An image of Saturn, taken in February 2011 by the Cassini spacecraft and released on July 6, shows a staggeringly powerful thunderstorm that is about 6,200 miles wide and has a tail of white clouds that encircles the planet.

The Gemini Observatory's image of Kronberger 61, released July 25, shows the shell of glowing ionized gas surrounding a dying star. Scientists want to study the planetary nebula using the Kepler planet-hunting probe, in hopes of learning more about the origins of such structures.

NASA astronaut Ken Ham, who was the commander of the shuttle Atlantis' STS-132 space mission in May 2010, throws out the ceremonial first pitch in a game between the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park in Houston on June 30. The Astros shut out the Rangers, 7-0.