cool pictures NASA

Midnight Sun(s)

This panorama mosaic, taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on board NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, documents the passage of the midnight sun over several days.

Lightning triggered a complex of forest fires in Northern California's Klamath National Forest on June 21, 2008. As of July 14, this group of fires, known as the Siskiyou Complex, had grown to affect an estimated 35,400 acres and was about 16 percent contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Firefighters were preparing for at least another month of battle with the blaze.

Early spring typically brings dust storms to northern polar regions of Mars. As the north polar cap begins to thaw, the temperature difference between the cold frost region and recently thawed surface results in swirling winds.. The choppy dust clouds of at least three dust storms are visible in this mosaic of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in 2002.

During the Gemini 4 mission on June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first American to conduct a spacewalk. The spacewalk started at 3:45 p.m. EDT on the third orbit when White opened the hatch and used the hand-held manuevering oxygen-jet gun to push himself out of the capsule.

A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years