NASA has launched an Instagram account “that will take its fans on an out-of-this-world journey through images of Earth and beyond,” according to a news release from the federal agency known for its use of social media. It plans to use both new and archived photos and videos.



NASA has posted 11 photos on the Facebook-owned photo-sharing social media platform since Sept. 6, and the page had 97,385 followers as of the time this article was written today.

“We’re constantly looking to expand our social media portfolio to include tools that will best tell NASA’s story of exploration and discovery,” said NASA press ecretary Lauren Worley in a prepared statement. “Instagram has a passionate following of users who are hungry for new and exciting photos. We believe we have some of the most engaging images on and off the planet — and we can’t wait to engage with Instagrammers.”

NASA will add Instagram posts before and during the planned launch Friday at 11:27 p.m. of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. It has also added historic photos of the moon. LADEE is an unmanned robotic research mission that will look at the “structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky.”

To visit NASA’s Instagram account, go to http://instagram.com/nasa. The agency’s Goddard Spaceflight Center and Ames Research Center are also on Instagram, respectively, at http://instagram.com/nasagoddard and http://instagram.com/nasaames.

This article was originally published on Social Times

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