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                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2024 March 7

                              The Crew-8 Nebula
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Seeley

   Explanation: Not the James Webb Space Telescope's latest view of a
   distant galactic nebula, this cloud of gas and dust dazzled spacecoast
   skygazers on March 3. The telephoto snapshot was taken minutes after
   the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, to the
   International Space Station. It captures plumes and exhaust from the
   separated first and second stage, a drifting Rorschach pattern in dark
   evening skies. The bright spot near bottom center within the stunning
   terrestrial nebulosity is the second stage engine firing to carry 4
   humans to space in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour. In sharp
   silhouette just above it is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting
   itself for return to a landing zone at Cape Canaveral, planet Earth.
   This reuseable first stage booster was making its first flight. But the
   Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule has flown humans to low Earth orbit and
   back again 4 times before. Endeavour, as a name for a spacecraft, has
   also seen reuse, christening retired Space Shuttle Endeavour and the
   Apollo 15 command module.

                 Tomorrow's picture: distant galactic nebula
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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