Omega Sunrise
21.09.2020

Capturing this sunrise required both luck and timing. First and foremost, precise timing was needed to capture a sailboat crossing right in front of a rising Sun. Additionally, by a lucky coincidence, the background Sun itself appears unusual -- it looks like the Greek letter Omega (н).

Jupiter Portrait
14.11.2003

Every day is a cloudy day on Jupiter, the Solar System's reigning gas giant. And swirling cloud tops are all you see in this stunningly detailed true color image, a portion of a large digital mosaic portrait of Jupiter recorded from the Cassini spacecraft during its Jovian flyby in December 2000.

Close up of the Face on Mars
14.12.2003

Wouldn't it be fun if clouds were turtles? Wouldn't it be fun if the laundry on the bedroom chair was a friendly monster? Wouldn't it be fun if rock mesas on Mars were faces or interplanetary monuments? Clouds, though, are small water droplets, floating on air.

Huygens on Titan Illustrated
31.01.2006

If you could stand on Titan, what might you see? About one year ago the robotic Huygens probe landed on the enigmatic moon of Saturn and sent back the first ever images from beneath Titan's thick cloud layers.

Four Planet Sunset
13.06.2013

You can see four planets in this serene sunset image, created from a series of stacked digital exposures captured near dusk on May 25. The composite picture follows the trail of three of them...

Moons and Jupiter
13.04.2017

On April 10, a Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Both were near opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's night sky. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmmed...

NGC 3717: A Nearly Sideways Spiral Galaxy
12.11.2019

Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can be appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NGC 3717, which is actually seen tilted just a bit.

Jupiter's Dry Spots
12.06.1997

Known for its spectacular images of Jupiter's moons, Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, the robot spacecraft Galileo has also aggressively explored the Jovian atmosphere. In December of 1995, Galileo's atmospheric probe descended into Jupiter's clouds and reported a surprising absence of water.

Iridescent Clouds from the Top of the World Highway
8.02.2011

Why would a cloud appear to be different colors? A relatively rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These clouds are formed of small water droplets of nearly uniform size.

Zodiacal Light and Milky Way
20.10.2012

Ghostly apparitions of two fundamental planes in planet Earth's sky span this October all-sky view. The scene was captured from a lakeside campsite under dark skies in northern Maine, USA. In it, the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy arcs above faint airglow along the horizon.