(September 1, 2009) - This is a close-up view of the logo on side of a new piece of equipment destined for a later-scheduled module called the 'Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,' or COLBERT. which was carried up to Earth orbit by the STS-128 Discovery crew. It will be deployed on the Tranquility node which will be delivered to the station by a future shuttle crew.

(September 1, 2009) - One of the space-walking astronauts on the STS-128 mission's first session of extravehicular activity (EVA)captured this electronic still image of the Space Shuttle Discovery's cabin. Construction and maintenance continued on the International Space Station during the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk of astronauts Nicole Stott and John "Danny" Olivas (both out of frame), mission specialist. Among their accomplishments, they removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return.

(1 Sept. 2009) - Astronaut Nicole Stott, Expedition 20 flight engineer, participates in the STS-128 mission's first session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Stott and astronaut John "Danny" Olivas (out of frame), mission specialist, removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return.

(1 Sept. 2009) - Astronaut John "Danny" Olivas, STS-128 mission specialist, participates in the mission's first session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Olivas and astronaut Nicole Stott (out of frame), mission specialist, removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return.

Several years ago gullies carved into hill-slopes and the walls of impact craters like the ones pictured here were discovered. Scientists are excited to study these features because, on Earth, they usually form through the action of liquid water - long thought to be absent on the Martian surface. Whether gullies form under today's cold dry conditions is a major question that planetary scientists are trying to answer. The gullies pictured here are great examples of what a typical Martian gully looks like. You can see wide V-shaped channels running downhill (from top to bottom) where the material that carved the gully flowed. At the bottom of the channel this material empties out onto a fan-shaped mound. Several gullies are visible here and the fans from each gully overlap one other in complicated ways. At the tops of the channels, large amphitheater-shaped alcoves are carved in the rock. The material removed from these alcoves likely flowed downhill to the aprons through the gullies.

This HiRISE image shows a close-up view of the terrain northeast of Zilair Crater. In lower-resolution images, from the Context Camera (also on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), this area looks quite rough. The reasons for this rough texture are difficult to determine; however, clues from the surrounding area help solve this mystery. Many large impact craters surround this image, but there are no volcanoes nearby making it unlikely that the rough surface is from fresh, blocky lava flows. The high-resolution image shown here reveals a few fresh, irregularly-shaped craters on top of this rough terrain. An irregular crater, approximately 600 meters (2000 feet) in diameter, is visible just right of center, about a third of the way up from the bottom of the image. Its shape suggests that it formed from a body that impacted the surface at a relatively low angle and slow speed. This makes it likely that it is a secondary crater (a crater that forms from debris blasted out of a nearby crater). The rough terrain here is therefore likely to be a mix of impact material and secondary craters from nearby impacts, such as the one that formed the nearby large crater Zilair. Written by: Andrea Philippoff

(September 1, 2009) - Astronaut Nicole Stott, Expedition 20 flight engineer, participates in the STS-128 mission's first session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Stott and astronaut John "Danny" Olivas (out of frame), mission specialist, removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return.

Boulders perched on the summit of the central peak of Tsiolkovskiy crater. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

Tropical Storm Krovanh blew along the coastline of Japan, near the capital city of Tokyo on August 31, 2009. According to a bulletin issued by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center the same day, the storm had sustained winds of 50 knots (93 kilometers per hour) with gusts up to 65 knots (120 kilometers per hour). Roughly 94 nautical miles (about 175 kilometers) east-northeast of Tokyo, the storm had been traveling toward the northeast. The MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image around 10:20 a.m. local time (1:20 UTC) on August 31, 2009. The eye of the storm appears to hover over the ocean south of Tokyo, but cloud cover extends over much of the island.

Hurricane Jimena had weakened slightly, becoming a Category 4 Hurricane just before the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image at 11:35 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, on September 1, 2009. The powerful storm has well-defined bands of clouds that circle a distinctive eye in this photo-like image. The outer bands of the storm were already over the southern tip of Baja California. The National Hurricane Center expected Jimena to move north along the peninsula before coming ashore on September 2 or September 3.