Here's the latest view of the United States at nighttime captured by NASA's Suomi NPP satellite and revealed at the American Geophysical Union conference earlier this week on Wednesday, December 5.

The Hubble Space Telescope took this spellbinding image of Pismis 24 (shown center above), one of the most massive and luminous star clusters known, glimmering above the NGC 6357 nebula that is approximately 8150 light-years away. According to NASA's estimates, the brightest star of Pismis 24 cluster is over 200 times the mass of our Sun.

Space Shot of the Day is a feature series following the latest developments in planetary science, astrophotography, space exploration, future plans for colonization and all things related to outer space.

The U.S. military's renowned R&D wing Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the latest bureau to join the crowdsourcing bandwagon with the launch of SpaceView, a sky-monitoring project that enables amateur space-gazers to gather data for the U.S. Air Force's Space Surveillance Network and help protect American orbital assets from colliding with space junk. NASA estimates there are more than 500,000 pieces of dangerous space debris orbiting the Earth, including spent rocket stages, defunct satellites and parts from other spacecraft.

Crowdsourcing Project of the Day is a feature series documenting the latest tools and innovations that are powered by the crowdsourcing model.

The latest images from NASA's GOES-13 satellite shed a new light on Hurricane Sandy's northbound journey across North America (shown at top center).

Space Shot of the Day is a feature series following the latest developments in planetary science, astrophotography, space exploration, future plans for colonization and all things related to outer space.

Neil Armstrong was laid to rest at sea today. The pics are amazing, as is this video tribute by NASA.

RIP, Neil.

[doobybrain]

What does it take to save the earth from possible asteroid-based destruction? A super-team of experts, under the water. Oh yes.

[popsci]

The lonely Curiosity rover is poised to get a companion on Mars in September 2016 -- so long as NASA's next mission, InSight, goes as planned.

Where Curiosity has been tasked with exploring the surface of Mars, a second rover is needed to probe its innards.

"We're really clueless about the interior," said NASA director of Planetary Science Jim Green.

And by 2016, us earthlings will be more than ready for a little Red Planet romance.

[themarysue]