All of Mars
10.02.1998

Mars Global Surveyor is photographing Mars. The robot spacecraft arrived last September and continues to use solar panel aerobraking to help maneuver it to a better orbit to survey all of Mars The above image is a reconstruction of several photographs digitally combined to simulate a single vantage point 2700 kilometers above the Martian surface.

Saturns Moon Epimetheus from the Cassini Spacecraft
11.02.2008

How did Epimetheus form? No one is yet sure. To help answer that question, this small moon has recently been imaged again in great detail by the robot spacecraft Cassini now orbiting Saturn. Epimetheus sometimes orbits Saturn in front of Janus, another small satellite, but sometimes behind.

When Roses Aren t Red
22.02.2018

Not all roses are red of course, but they can still be very pretty. Likewise, the beautiful Rosette Nebula and other star forming regions are often shown in astronomical images with a predominately red hue, in part because the dominant emission in the nebula is from hydrogen atoms.

Saturns Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters
18.01.2009

What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? Nobody knows. To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon in late 2005 and took an image of unprecedented detail.

DART Asteroid Impact from Space
29.09.2022

Fifteen days before impact, the DART spacecraft deployed a small companion satellite to document its historic planetary defense technology demonstration. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, aka LICIACube, recorded this image of the event's aftermath.

A Complete Solar Cycle from SOHO
3.12.2007

Every eleven years, our Sun goes through a solar cycle. A complete solar cycle has now been imaged by the sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft, celebrating the 12th anniversary of its launch yesterday. A solar cycle...

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Dust and Stars
10.04.2001

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky.

Atete Corona on Venus
12.03.2002

What could cause a huge cylindrical mountain to rise from the surface of Venus? Such features that occur on Venus are known as coronas. Pictured above in the foreground is 500-kilometer wide Atete Corona found in a region of Venus known as the Galindo.

Venus, Mercury, and Moon
22.04.2010

Earlier this month, Venus and Mercury climbed into the western twilight, entertaining skygazers around planet Earth in a lovely conjunction of evening stars. Combining 8 images spanning April 4 through April 15, this composite tracks their progress through skies above Portsmouth, UK. Each individual image was captured at 19:50 UT.

The Hills of Mars
8.01.2004

Distant hills rise above a rocky, windswept plain in this sharp stereo scene from the Spirit rover on Mars. When viewed with red/blue glasses, the picture combines left and right images from Spirit's high resolution panoramic camera to yield a dramatic 3D perspective.