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September 27 in spaceflight
Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 27. Below are the pictures NASA published on September 27 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD5ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1822 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for September 27, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on September 27
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2025
A Rocket in the Sun
On the morning of September 24 a rocket crosses the bright solar disk in this long range telescopic snapshot captured from Orlando, Florida. That's about 50 miles west of its Kennedy Space Center launch site. This rocket carried three new space weather missions to space. Signals have now been successfully acquired from all three - NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) - as they begin their journey to L1, an Earth-Sun lagrange point. L1 is about 1.5 million kilometers in the sunward direction from planet Earth. Appropriately, major space weather influencers, aka dark sunspots in active regions across the Sun, are posing with the transiting rocket. In fact, large active region AR4225 is just right of the rocket's nose.
© Pascal Fouquet — used with the credit NASA publishes
2024
Stellar Streams in the Local Universe
The twenty galaxies arrayed in these panels are part of an ambitious astronomical survey of tidal stellar streams. Each panel presents a composite view; a deep, inverted image taken from publicly available imaging surveys of a field that surrounds a nearby massive galaxy image. The inverted images reveal faint cosmic structures, star streams hundreds of thousands of light-years across, that result from the gravitational disruption and eventual merger of satellite galaxies in the local universe. Such surveys of mergers and gravitational tidal interactions between massive galaxies and their dwarf satellites are crucial guides for current models of galaxy formation and cosmology. Of course, the detection of stellar streams in the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way also offers spectacular evidence for ongoing satellite galaxy disruption within our more local galaxy group.
NASA · public domain
2023
STEVE and Milky Way Cross over Rural Road
Not every road ends in a STEVE. A week ago, a sky enthusiast's journey began with a goal: to photograph an aurora over Lake Huron. Driving through rural Ontario, Canada, the forecasted sky show started unexpectedly early, causing the photographer to stop before arriving at the scenic Great Lake. Aurora images were taken toward the north -- but over land, not sea. While waiting for a second round of auroras, a peculiar band of light was noticed to the west. Slowly, the photographer and friends realized that this western band was likely an unusual type of aurora: a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). Moreover, this STEVE was putting on quite a show: appearing intertwined with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy while intersecting the horizon just near the end of the country road. After capturing this cosmic X on camera, the photographer paused to appreciate the unexpected awesomeness of finding extraordinary beauty in an ordinary setting. Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)
© Theresa Clarke — used with the credit NASA publishes
2022
DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To help protect our Earth from some potential future impacts, NASA tested a new planetary defense mechanism yesterday by crashing the robotic Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small asteroid spanning about 170-meters across. As shown in the featured video, the impact was a success. Ideally, if impacted early enough, even the kick from a small spacecraft can deflect a large asteroid enough to miss the Earth. In the video, DART is seen in a time-lapse video first passing larger Didymos, on the left, and then approaching the smaller Dimorphos. Although the video ends abruptly with DART's crash, observations monitoring the changed orbit of Dimorphos -- from spacecraft and telescopes around the world -- have just begun.
NASA · public domain
2021
Unwrapped: Five Decade Old Lunar Selfie
Here is one of the most famous pictures from the Moon -- but digitally reversed. Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 and soon thereafter many pictures were taken, including an iconic picture of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil Armstrong. The original image captured not only the magnificent desolation of an unfamiliar world, but Armstrong himself reflected in Aldrin's curved visor. Enter modern digital technology. In the featured image, the spherical distortion from Aldrin's helmet has been reversed. The result is the famous picture -- but now featuring Armstrong himself from Aldrin's perspective. Even so, since Armstrong took the picture, the image is effectively a five-decade old lunar selfie. The original visor reflection is shown on the left, while Earth hangs in the lunar sky on the upper right. A foil-wrapped leg of the Eagle lander is prominently visible. Preparations to return humans to the Moon in the next few years include the Artemis program, an international collaboration led by NASA.
NASA · public domain
What happened on September 27
1822
In a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, Jean-François Champollion announced his initial successes in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone (pictured).
Lettre à M. Dacier ↗
1822
Jean-François Champollion officially informs the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in France that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone.
Jean-François Champollion ↗
2008
CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk.
Zhai Zhigang ↗
Sources and licences
Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.
Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. This archive is still being mirrored, so some days are incomplete. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.
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Cosmos — Carl Sagan
Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.
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Pale Blue Dot — Carl Sagan
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
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Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.
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