Surveyor Slides
27.09.2003

"Safe!" In September 1967 (during regular season play), the Surveyor 5 lander actually slid several feet while making a successful soft landing on the Moon's Mare Tranquillitatis. Equipped with television cameras and soil...

Jupiter and Ring in Infrared from Webb
20.07.2022

Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's main ring was discovered in 1979 by NASA's passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but its origin was then a mystery. Data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft that...

A Solar Filament Lifts Off
9.08.2000

Hot gas frequently erupts from the Sun. One such eruption produced the glowing filament pictured above, which was captured on July 19 by the Earth-orbiting TRACE satellite. The filament, although small compared...

Water Ice Imaged in Martian Polar Cap
19.02.2002

Does water exist today on Mars? Yes, although the only place on Mars known to have water is the North Polar Cap, and that water is frozen. Views of this potentially life-enabling water-ice are usually obscured -- in the winter by darkness and in the summer by clouds.

The Cats Eye Nebula
24.03.2002

Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known.

Sunspot Loops in Ultraviolet
8.05.2002

It was a quiet day on the Sun. The above image shows, however, that even during off days the Sun's surface is a busy place. Shown in ultraviolet light, the relatively cool dark regions have temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius.

Moonset, Planet Earth
21.09.2002

During the Astro-1 astronomy mission of December, 1990, Space Shuttle astronauts photographed this stunning view of the setting full moon poised above the Earth's limb. In the foreground, towering clouds of condensing water vapor mark the extent of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's life-sustaining atmosphere.

Surveyor Hops
15.04.2000

This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from images returned by the US Surveyor 6 lander. Surveyor 6 was not the first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing on the Moon ... but it was the first to land and then lift off again!

Milky Way Voyager
2.09.2017

Launched in 1977 on a tour of the outer planets of the Solar System, Voyager 1 and 2 have become the longest operating and most distant spacecraft from Earth. Nearly 16 light-hours from...

Comet Siding Spring Passes Mars
20.10.2014

Yesterday, a comet passed very close to Mars. In fact, Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) passed closer to the red planet than any comet has ever passed to Earth in recorded history. To take...