APOD: 2025 August 23 Б Fishing for the Moon
23.08.2025

How big is planet Earth's Moon? Compared to other moons of the Solar System, it's number 5 on the largest to smallest ranked list, following Jupiter's moon Ganymede, Saturn's moon Titan, and Jovian moons Callisto and Io. Continuing the list, the Moon comes before Jupiter's Europa and Neptune's Triton.

Shadow of a Martian Robot
28.03.2015

What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the Opportunity rover currently exploring Mars. Opportunity has been exploring the red planet since early 2004, finding evidence of ancient water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System.

Shadow of a Martian Robot
3.08.2004

What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the Opportunity rover currently exploring Mars. Opportunity and sister robot Spirit have been probing the red planet since January, finding evidence of ancient water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System.

The Infrared Sky
28.01.1998

Three major sources contribute to the far-infrared sky: our Solar System, our Galaxy, and our Universe. The above image, in representative colors, is a projection of the entire infrared sky created from years of observations by the robot spacecraft COBE.

One Night One Telescope One Camera
28.07.2018

Taken on the same night, from the same place, with the same telescope and camera, these postcards from our Solar System are shown at the same scale to provide an interesting comparison of apparent sizes. Spanning about half a degree in planet Earth's sky, the Moon is a stitched mosaic of six images.

APOD: 2026 January 20 Б Io in True Color
20.01.2026

The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. The featured picture, an attempt to show how Io would appear in the "true colors" perceptible to the average human eye, was taken in 1999 July by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.

Comet Lovejoy over The Great Wall
20.02.2014

Fading now as it returns to the outer solar system Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1) still graces planet Earth's sky, a delicate apparition in binoculars or small telescopes. The comet, a relic...

The Largest Impact Crater
6.09.1996

What is the largest known impact crater in the Solar System? Over 1300 miles across, the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the farside of Earth's Moon holds that distinction. Circled above in a false color mosaic of Clementine images it was caused when an asteroid or comet sized object crashed

Shadow of a Martian Robot
29.06.2008

What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the Opportunity rover currently exploring Mars. Opportunity and sister robot Spirit have been probing the red planet since early 2004, finding evidence of ancient water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System.

Jupiter Moon Movie
29.03.2007

South is toward the top in this frame from a stunning movie featuring Jupiter and moons recorded last Thursday from the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia. In fact, three jovian moons and two red spots are ultimately seen in the full video as they glide around the solar system's ruling gas giant.