NASA astronaut Joe Acaba photographed Puerto Rico from the cupola of the International Space Station on Oct. 12, 2017. Sharing the image with his followers on social media, he wrote, “Finally a chance to see the beautiful island of Puerto Rico from @Space_Station. Continued thoughts throughout the recovery process.”

This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from neutron stars just before they collided.

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei exits the International Space Station on Oct. 10, 2017, for a spacewalk in this photograph taken by fellow spacewalker Randy Bresnik. Bresnik wrote, “A glorious sunrise greeted @Astro_Sabot and I at the start of our 2nd #spacewalk. His visor reflection shows the airlock hatch we came out.”

Dawn brings the sight of Dream Chaser, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s reusable spaceplane, as it sits on the runway at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.

On October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 launched

This image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) shows one possible place where sand grains are being produced on Mars today.

Astronaut Randy Bresnik conducts a spacewalk on October 5.

Members of the National Space Council are seen during the council’s first meeting on Oct. 5 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives.

History changed on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The world’s first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, about 23 inches in diameter and weighing less than 190 pounds.

It’s planting season on the International Space Station! NASA astronaut Joe Acaba prepared the Veggie facility for three different kinds of lettuce seeds as part of the VEG-03-D investigation. This is the first time seeds from multiple kinds of plants are being grown in the facility all at the same time.