Europa's Disconnected Surface
1.01.1998

Jupiter's moon Europa is so exciting that the Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has now embarked on an extended mission to study it. Oceans that might exist beneath Europa's surface are thought to be one of the best places to look for life in our Solar System.

Water Discovered in Moon Shadow
17.11.2009

Why is there water on the Moon? Last month, the LCROSS mission crashed a large impactor into a permanently shadowed crater near the Moon's South Pole. A plume of dust rose that was visible to the satellite, although hard to discern from Earth. The plume is shown above in visible light.

Young Martian Terrain
1.08.2001

What caused the pits, ridges, and gullies on otherwise smooth Martian terrain? One hypothesis is water. The lack of craters at this mid-latitude location indicates that the terrain is quite young by geological standards, perhaps only 100,000 years old.

A Digital Opportunity Rover on Mars
13.12.2005

If you could see one of the robot rovers currently rolling across Mars, what would it look like? To gain this perspective useful in planning explorations, the above synthetic image was produced digitally. Above...

Star Party on Planet Earth
4.04.2009

As twilight sweeps around planet Earth tonight (April 4), many amateur astronomers will set up their telescopes for a 24-hour global star party. The planetwide star party is part of 100 Hours of Astronomy (100HA), a project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

Curiosity on Mars: Mt Sharp in View
27.08.2012

What's that on the horizon? The light peak is Mt. Sharp -- an eventual destination of the Curiosity rover. The above image mosaic was taken from Bradbury Landing, the landing spot of Curiosity, and shows in the foreground the rover's extended robotic arm.

Late Afternoon on Mars
19.12.2019

Shadows grow long near sunset in this wide panoramic view from the Curiosity rover on Mars. Made with Curiosity's navcam, the scene covers about 200 degrees from north through east to south (left to right), stitched together from frames taken by the Mars rover on sol 2616. That's just Earth date December 16.

APOD: 2025 April 22 Б Terminator Moon: A Moonscape of Shadows
21.04.2025

What's different about this Moon? It's the terminators. In the featured image, you can't directly see any terminator -- the line that divides the light of day from the dark of night. That's because the featured image is a digital composite of many near-terminator lunar strips over a full Moon.

White Rock Fingers on Mars
13.05.2002

What caused this unusual white rock formation on Mars? Intrigued by the possibility that they could be salt deposits left over as an ancient lakebed dried-up, detailed studies of these fingers now indicate a more mundane origin: volcanic ash. Studying the exact color of the formation indicated the volcanic origin.

NGC 6826: The Blinking Eye
18.12.1997

The colorful planetary nebula phase of a sun-like star's life is brief. Almost in the "blink of an eye" - cosmically speaking - the star's outer layers are cast off, forming an expanding emission nebula. This nebula lasts perhaps 10 thousand years compared to a 10 billion year stellar life span.