Neptune's Great Dark Spot: Gone But Not Forgotten
8.05.1996

When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by distant Neptune in August of 1989, astronomers were shocked. Since Neptune receives only 3 percent the sunlight Jupiter does, they expected to find a dormant, dark, frigid planet. Instead, the Voyager images revealed evidence of a dynamic and turbulent world.

Europa: Ridges and Rafts on a Frozen Moon
10.09.1998

The large Jovian moon Europa may harbor liquid water beneath its frozen crust. Controversy surrounding this idea has been recently fueled by dramatic images of Europa's surface from the Galileo spacecraft. This alluring...

Comet SWAN Brightens
4.10.2006

A newly discovered comet has brightened enough to be visible this week with binoculars. The picturesque comet is already becoming a favored target for northern sky imagers. Pictured above just last week, Comet SWAN showed a bright blue-green coma and an impressive tail.

Comet Hartley Passes a Double Star Cluster
26.10.2010

Most star clusters are singularly impressive. Open clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884, however, are doubly impressive. Also known as "h and chi Persei", this unusual double cluster, shown above, is bright enough to be seen from a dark location without even binoculars.

Martian Moon Phobos from Mars Express
1.12.2010

Why is Phobos so dark? Phobos, the largest and innermost of two Martian moons, is the darkest moon in the entire Solar System. Its unusual orbit and color indicate that it may be a captured asteroid composed of a mixture of ice and dark rock.

The Day After Mars
31.10.2014

October 31, 1938 was the day after Martians encountered planet Earth, and everything was calm. Reports of the invasion were revealed to be part of a Halloween radio drama, the now famous broadcast based on H.G. Wells' scifi novel War of the Worlds.

Martian Moon Phobos from Mars Express
8.11.2020

Why is Phobos so dark? Phobos, the largest and innermost of two Martian moons, is the darkest moon in the entire Solar System. Its unusual orbit and color indicate that it may be a captured asteroid composed of a mixture of ice and dark rock.

Zodiacal Light and Mars
11.03.2021

Just after sunset on March 7, a faint band of light still reaches above the western horizon in this serene, rural Illinois, night skyscape. Taken from an old farmstead, the luminous glow is zodiacal light, prominent in the west after sunset during planet Earth's northern hemisphere spring.

Galileo's Jupiter Probe
7.12.1995

Today, at about 5:00 pm EST, this 750 pound probe from NASA's robot spacecraft Galileo will plummet into Jupiter becoming the first probe to fly through the atmosphere of a gas giant planet.

A Robots Shadow on Asteroid Itokawa
16.11.2005

What's that unusual looking spot on asteroid Itokawa? It's the shadow of the robot spacecraft Hayabusa that took the image. Japan's Hayabusa mission arrived at the asteroid in early September and has been imaging and maneuvering around the floating space mountain ever since. The above picture was taken earlier this month.