Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes of Terror
31.07.2012

Next week at this time, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on many things going correctly in the minutes after the Mars Science Laboratory mission arrives at Mars and attempts to deploy the Curiosity rover from orbit.

Ganymede from Juno
14.06.2021

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges.

Carving Ma adim Vallis
27.06.2002

Just as erosion from the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon on Earth, a river of flood water may have carved Ma'adim Vallis, one of the largest canyons on Mars. Researchers have presented...

Mars Then and Now
12.11.2003

Does Mars have canals? A hot debate topic of the late 1800s, several prominent astronomers including Percival Lowell not only claimed to see an extensive system of long straight canals on Mars, but used them to indicate that intelligent life exists there.

Asteroids in the Distance
16.03.1998

Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-balls streak through our atmosphere daily, most evaporating quickly to nothing.

Opportunity Rockets Toward Mars
22.09.2003

Next stop: Mars. Two months ago, the second of two missions to Mars was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA above a Boeing Delta II rocket. The Mars Exploration Rover dubbed Opportunity is expected to arrive at the red planet this coming January.

Ice Moon Tethys from Saturn Orbiting Cassini
8.12.2009

What processes formed the unusual surface of Saturn's moon Tethys? To help find out, NASA sent the robotic Cassini spacecraft right past the enigmatic ice moon in 2005. Pictured above is one of the highest resolution images of an entire face of Tethys yet created.

Radio, The Big Ear, and the WOW Signal
2.05.2020

Since the early days of radio and television we have been freely broadcasting signals into space. For some time now, we have been listening too. A large radio telescope at Ohio State University known as affectionately The Big Ear was one of the first listeners.

The Lost World of Lake Vida
4.04.2004

A lake hidden beneath 19 meters of ice and gravel has been found near the bottom of the world that might contain an ecosystem completely separate from our own. In a modern version...

Thirty Thousand Kilometers Above Enceladus
17.03.2008

What does the surface of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus look like? To help find out, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn was sent soaring past the cryovolcanic moon and even right through one of Enceladus' ice plumes. Cassini closed to about 52 kilometers during its closest encounter to date.