Southern Jupiter from Perijove 3
16.12.2016

Southern Jupiter looms some 37,000 kilometers away in this JunoCam image from December 11. The image data was captured near Juno's third perijove or closest approach to Jupiter, the spacecraft still in its 53 day long looping orbit.

Meeting in the Mesosphere
3.07.2020

A sensitive video camera on a summit of the Vosges mountains in France captured these surprising fireworks above a distant horizon on June 26. Generated over intense thunderstorms, this one about 260 kilometers away, the brief and mysterious flashes have come to be known as red sprites.

APOD: 2024 November 10 Б Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
9.11.2024

The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep.

The Dark River to Antares
15.05.2020

A dark river seems to flow through this sky from the horizon toward colorful clouds near red giant star Antares. Murky looking, the dark river is a dusty nebula obscuring background starlight near the central Milky Way, although the dark dust nebula contains mostly hydrogen molecular gas.

Saturn Rotates
3.10.2000

The dramatic rotation of the cloud-tops of Saturn every ten-hours is particularly evident from orbit around the gas giant planet. With a good enough telescope, however, such rotation is visible even from Earth, as shown by this time-lapse image sequence from the Hubble Space Telescope taken in November 1990.

An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
24.03.2002

Is there a monster in IC 1396? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms, some nearly human. The only real monster here, however, is a bright young star too far from Earth to hurt us.

Cracks and Ridges on Europa
2.06.2002

Which way to the interstate? What appears to be a caricature of a complex highway system on Earth is actually a system of ridges and cracks on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. The distance between parallel ridges in the above photograph is typically about 1 kilometer.

Stereo Saturn
28.10.1997

Get out your red/blue glasses and launch yourself into this stereo picture of Saturn! The picture is actually composed from two images recorded weeks apart by the Voyager 2 spacecraft during its visit to the Saturnian System in August of 1981.

Super Typhoon Winnie
19.08.1997

Super Typhoon Winnie raged through parts of the Eastern Hemisphere last week. Swirling in the Pacific Ocean with winds in excess of 160 miler per hour, Winnie became one of the stronger storm systems in modern times: a Category 5 Hurricane.

Adirondack Rock on Mars
20.01.2004

Is this a great pyramid on Mars? Actually, the pictured rock dubbed Adirondack has an irregular shape, is only about the size of a football, and has formed by natural processes. Still, its relatively large size and dust-free surface made it the first destination for the robotic Spirit rover currently roving Mars.