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.

3D Bennu
23.10.2021

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning toy top with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about one Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across.

Gravel Ejected from Asteroid Bennu
16.09.2020

Why does asteroid Bennu eject gravel into space? No one is sure. The discovery, occurring during several episodes by NASA's visiting ORISIS-REx spacecraft, was unexpected. Leading ejection hypotheses include impacts by Sun-orbiting meteoroids, sudden thermal fractures of internal structures, and the sudden release of a water vapor jet.

Earths North Magnetic Pole
18.08.2002

A magnetic compass does not point toward the true North Pole of the Earth. Rather, it more closely points toward the North Magnetic Pole of the Earth. The North Magnetic Pole is currently located in northern Canada.

Cassini Passes Through Ice Plumes of Enceladus
13.10.2008

What telling impurities taint the ice plumes of Enceladus? To help answer this question, the robotic Cassini spacecraft dove last week to within 30 kilometers of Saturn's ice-plume emitting moon. At this closest-ever...

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse
5.06.1999

Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), a red supergiant star about 600 light years distant, is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image - the first direct picture of the surface of a star other than the Sun. While Betelgeuse is cooler than the Sun, it is more massive and over 1000 times larger.

Solar Eclipse: A Composite View
27.02.1998

Yesterday, the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth, treating a large portion of the Western Hemisphere to an Eclipse of the Sun. This composite image combines pictures of the Sun made from both Earth and space.

Welcome to Planet Earth
2.01.2005

Welcome to Planet Earth, the third planet from a star named the Sun. The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock. Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water. The planet has a relatively thin atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen.

Destination: Moon
8.01.1998

Tuesday, January 6, at 9:28 p.m. EST, NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft climbed into the sky above Cape Canaveral Air Station riding an Athena II rocket. Representing NASA's first Moon mission since...

Thirty Thousand Kilometers Above Enceladus
17.03.2008

What does the surface of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus look like? To help find out, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn was sent soaring past the cryovolcanic moon and even right through one of Enceladus' ice plumes. Cassini closed to about 52 kilometers during its closest encounter to date.