Venus Once Molten Surface
27.04.2003

If you could look at Venus with radar eyes - this is what you might see. This computer reconstruction of the surface of Venus was created from data from the Magellan spacecraft. Magellan orbited Venus and used radar to map our neighboring planet's surface between 1990 and 1994.

Asteroid or Potato
1.04.2020

Is this asteroid Arrokoth or a potato? Perhaps, after all the data was beamed back to Earth from NASA's robotic New Horizons spacecraft, the featured high resolution image of asteroid Arrokoth was constructed. Perhaps, alternatively, the featured image is of a potato. Let's consider some facts.

APOD: 2025 September 28 Б Leopard Spots on Martian Rocks
28.09.2025

What is creating these unusual spots? Light-colored spots on Martian rocks, each surrounded by a dark border, were discovered last year by NASA's Perseverance Rover currently exploring Mars. Dubbed leopard spots because...

APOD: 2025 April 2 Б Jupiter and Ring in Infrared from Webb
2.04.2025

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...

APOD: 2026 February 11 Б A Year of Sunspots
11.02.2026

How many sunspots can you see? The central image shows the many sunspots that occurred in 2025, month by month around the circle, and all together in the grand central image. Each sunspot is magnetically cooled and so appears dark -- and can last from days to months.

Sputnik: Traveling Companion
7.10.2000

Sputnik means "traveling companion". Despite the innocuous sounding name, the launch of the Earth's first "artificial moon", Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 shocked the free world, setting in motion events which resulted in the creation of NASA and the race to the Moon.

Cassini Spacecraft Approaches Jupiter
11.10.2000

A new spacecraft has entered the outer Solar System: Cassini. Launched in 1997 and bound for Saturn in 2004, Cassini sent back the above image last week while approaching the giant planet Jupiter. Cassini joins the Galileo spacecraft currently in orbit around Jupiter in studying the gas giant and its moons.

Olympus Mons Volcano on Mars
29.05.2000

Scroll right to virtually climb the largest volcano in the Solar System. Olympus Mons on Mars measures three times higher than Earth's highest mountain, and has a volume over fifty times greater than Earth's largest volcano. The caldera at the top is over 70 kilometers wide.

The Long Jet of Pictor A
19.06.2000

A jet stretching nearly a million light years has been imaged emanating from galaxy Pictor A. The thin jet of electrons and protons shoots out at nearly light-speed likely from the vicinity of a large black hole at the galaxy center.

Geysers on Triton
5.08.1995

In August of 1989 NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft passed by Neptune, the most distant of the solar system's gas giant planets. Its encounter with Neptune climaxed with its closest approach to Neptune's largest moon Triton.