For older Image of the Day pictures, please visit the Image of the Day archives. Above: NGC 2467.
Monday, October 1, 2012: MSG-3 (Meteosat Second Generation) satellite caught this view of the Earth and moon on August 31, 2012, before disappearing from the satellite’s sight behind the southern hemisphere. As the second full moon of August (as seen by Earth observers), it is referred to as a “blue moon.” [Check out our wallpaper of this image.]
— Tom Chao
Tuesday, October 2, 2012: Astrophotographer Colin Chatfield sent in a photo of an auroral display taken on the evening of Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2012, from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. [For more aurora photos, see: Amazing Auroras: Northern Lights of October 2012 (Photos).]
— Tom Chao
Wednesday, October 3, 2012: SPACE.com reader George Garcia sent in his photo of the Harvest Moon taken on Sept. 29, 2012, in Montebello, CA.
— Tom Chao
Thursday, October 4, 2012: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photographed the globular cluster Messier 69 (M69), a dense collection of old stars. M69 is one of the most metal-rich globular clusters, though they are lower in metals than recently formed stars such as the sun. M69 lies 29,700 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius (the Archer).
— Tom Chao
Friday, October 5, 2012: A Delta 4 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Oct. 4, 2012, carrying the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-3 satellite. [See our full gallery.]
— Tom Chao
Monday, October 8, 2012: Data from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows a natural-color view of Hooke Crater and the icy plains of Argyre Planitia on the red planet. The western half of Hooke Crater (85.7 miles or 138 km wide) appears here. To the left of the crater, the Argyle Planitia plains are coated with a thin layer of frozen carbon dioxide. Argyre impact basin provides scientists with one of the locations on Mars with a mixture of young and old terrains, as well as deep and surface materials. The image data was obtained on June 8, 2012.
— Tom Chao
Tuesday, October 9, 2012: SpaceX launched its Dragon spacecraft on the first commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station on October 7, 2012. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. [See full gallery.]
— Tom Chao
Wednesday, October 10, 2012: Astrophotographer Paul Zizka sent in this photo of an aurora with a special guest, taken at the Minnewanka boat docks, Banff National Park, Canada, on Oct. 8, 2012. He writes: “When this shot was taken I was perhaps not the most thrilled photographer. It was the second night in a week that I went chasing the auroras all night, and they were hidden somewhere behind a veil of clouds (as you can tell from the surreal sky), even though the rest of the country seemed to be seeing them. It turns out that I was completely unaware that I was taking one of my most memorable shots. This morning I noticed a visitor [had] made his way into the frame, and I could not believe my eyes. The owl is surprisingly sharp in this 5-second exposure. Thanks to the Minnewanka boat docks for lighting the bird perfectly, and to Mother Nature for providing the perfect perch and background.”
— Tom Chao
Thursday, October 11, 2012: A pre-stellar cloud in the Taurus Molecular Cloud contains water vapor in an amount 2000 times as large as the Earth’s oceans. ESA’s Herschel space observatory detected the water vapor in a molecular cloud on the verge of star formation for the first time in this image of Lynds 1544, shown at lower left. The Taurus Molecular Cloud lies about 450 light-years from Earth and is the nearest large region of star formation.
— Tom Chao
Friday, October 12, 2012: Adam Block at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter in Arizona caught Comet 168P Hergenrother on October 5, 2012.
— Tom Chao
Monday, October 15, 2012: A large coronal mass ejection erupted from the sun Oct. 4-5, 2012, hurling energetic particles into the Earth’s magnetosphere, producing many beautiful auroral displays on Earth. [Amazing Auroras: Northern Lights of October 2012 (Photos)
.] The view from space was equally spectacular. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite acquired this view of the aurora borealis on October 8, 2012. The northern lights float above the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario in this image. Hudson Bay appears as a dark patch at top center. Lake Michigan clearly stands out darkly in the lower center, with the lights of Chicago, IL, on the southern tip. Bright lights sharply define the northeastern megalopolis of the United States at lower right, including Long Island jutting out into the ocean. Montreal, Canada, shines as a bright spot near the right side just below center.
— Tom Chao
Tuesday, October 16, 2012: After flying to an altitude of 128,100 feet (39,045 meters) in a helium-filled balloon over Roswell, New Mexico, Felix Baumgartner begins his record-breaking jump from the edge of space, Oct. 14, 2012.
— Tom Chao
Wednesday, October 17, 2012: The California Science Center tweeted this picture of retired shuttle Endeavour rolling east through the streets of Los Angeles early on the morning of October 14, 2012. They wrote: “Thru Arlington, into the sunrise http://ow.ly/i/11pGt“
— Tom Chao
Thursday, October 18, 2012: Planetary nebula IC 5148 lies about 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Grus (The Crane). The nebula, with a diameter of a couple of light-years, expands at over TK miles (50 kilometers) per second, making it one of the fastest expanding planetary nebulas. (The term “planetary nebula” is a misnomer created by early astronomers’ mistaking the objects for giant planets.) The ring-like appearance of IC 5148 led astronomers to nickname it the Spare Tyre Nebula.
— Tom Chao
Friday, October 19, 2012: A large prominence sprouted from the sun and leapt off into space Oct. 6-7, 2012. This image combines the sun observed in extreme UV light by STEREO Ahead spacecraft with STEREO’s view of the corona in white light. Prominences consist of clouds of cooler plasma hovering above the sun before breaking away or fading.
— Tom Chao
Monday, October 22, 2012: Soyuz lifted off on Oct. 12, 2012, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. It placed the second pair of Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites into orbit. The satellites are part of Europe’s global satellite navigation system.
— Tom Chao
Tuesday, October 23, 2012: Astrophotographer Jason Hullinger took some shots of the Orionid meteor shower in Red Canyon State Park, CA near Mojave/California City, Oct. 21, 2012. This image of star trails includes about 40 minutes of exposures. Two meteors appear at the right side.
— Tom Chao
Wednesday, October 24, 2012: The just-released book "Planetfall: New Solar System Visions" by Michael Benson (Abrams) showcases spectacular space vistas. This photo by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) displays the solar corona and magnetic loops during an eclipse of the sun by the Earth. The edge of the Earth does not appear perfectly sharp because some light filters through the Earth’s atmosphere, which varies in density. Image obtained April 2, 2011.
— Tom Chao
Thursday, October 25, 2012: A Soyuz rocket with three Expedition 33/34 crew members, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer Kevin Ford of NASA and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin of ROSCOSMOS, launched to the International Space Station on October 23, 2012, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. [See full gallery.]
— Tom Chao
Friday, October 26, 2012: Astrophotographer Michael Humpherson caught an Orionid meteor on Panther Beach, just north of Santa Cruz, CA, on Oct. 24, 2012. He writes: "I was setting [up] for a few shots of the Milky Way on the beach — the moon was still too high — [and] was seeing how they came out when the asteroid came blasting in above me ... I caught the start of it, and the sea turning almost green with the light as it exploded."
— Tom Chao
Monday, October 29, 2012: During the night of October 28, 2012, Hurricane Sandy’s cloud tops were illuminated by the nearly full moon. The Suomi NPP satellite spied the storm with a special “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as auroras, airglow, gas flares, city lights, and reflected moonlight. Some llights of Florida and Georgia cities glow between the clouds. [See full gallery.]
— Tom Chao
Tuesday, October 30, 2012: SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft returned from the International Space Station, splashing down approximately 250 miles off the coast of southern California on October 28, 2012, 12:22 p.m. PT. The mission represented NASA’s first commercial cargo resupply trip to the ISS.
— Tom Chao
Wednesday, October 31, 2012: Liz Warren, an employee at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, recently carved her annual "space-o'-lantern," this year featuring Curiosity rover. She writes: "I carved a Curiosity design this year because in August of this year, that mission truly captured the imagination of the world in bold NASA fashion. They dared a mighty thing and they succeeded.... It's breaking a little with my tradition of featuring human spaceflight, but NASA's missions are broad and so I feel good about broadening the topic of my pumpkins.... Bobak Ferdowski [“Mohawk Guy”] is going to be in Houston late next week, and I think it would be fun to give him the pumpkin!"
— Tom Chao
