The Crew-8 Nebula

Explanation: Not the James Webb Space Telescope's latest view of a distant galactic nebula, this cloud of gas and dust dazzled spacecoast skygazers on March 3. The telephoto snapshot was taken minutes after the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station. It captures plumes and exhaust from the separated first and second stages, a drifting Rorschach pattern in dark evening skies. The bright spot near bottom center within the stunning terrestrial nebulosity is the second stage engine firing to carry 4 humans to space in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour . In sharp silhouette just above it is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting itself for return to a landing zone at Cape Canaveral , planet Earth. This reuseable first stage booster was making its first flight. But the Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule has flown humans to low Earth orbit and back again 4 times before. Endeavour , as a name for a spacecraft, has also seen reuse, christening retired Space Shuttle Endeavour and the Apollo 15 command module .