The launch of Crew-8 is today's astronomical picture

The picture is highlighted NASA This Thursday (7) a gaseous and colorful structure appears in the sky. It may even seem to some nebula Far away, but in fact, the cloud in question is part of a plume launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, from SpaceX.

That night, the rocket launched the Crew-8 mission with four astronauts on board International Space Station. After the two phases separated, a huge column of gases formed in the sky.

The bright spot near the bottom of the image, toward the center, is the Falcon 9 second stage, which at the time was propelling the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The capsule was called Endeavour, the same name as one of the pods Space ship The Apollo 15 command module.

Above him is the silhouette of a rocket preparing to return and land. This was the first trip at this stage.

Crew mission-8

As the name suggests, Crew-8 is the eighth rotation mission launched using SpaceX's space transportation system. After some postponements due to unfavorable conditions, the mission was launched on 4 March, at 00:53 Brasilia time.

On board the Crew Dragon spacecraft were astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Janet Epps, all of NASA. They were accompanied by Alexander Grebenkin from Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The new group of astronauts arrived at the orbiting laboratory on the 5th of this month, and were greeted by the 70 members of the expedition. Now they must spend six months in orbit to conduct more than 200 scientific experiments, which are part of the preparation for the next human space exploration. Earth is low Earth orbit.

source: APOD

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