Io: The Prometheus Plume
22.06.2002

Two sulfurous eruptions are visible on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in this color composite Galileo image. On the left, over Io's limb, a new bluish plume rises about 86 miles above the surface of a volcanic caldera known as Pillan Patera.

Missoula Crater on Mars
4.05.2004

Scroll right to see the rocks, craters, and hills that were in view for the Spirit rover last week as it continued its trek across Mars. Missoula crater, taking up much of the above frame, appeared from orbit to have ejecta from Bonneville crater inside it.

Saturns Moon Dione from Cassini
1.12.2004

What causes the bright streaks on Dione? Recent and likely future images of this unusual moon by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn might help us find out. The above image was taken at the end of October from a distance of about one million kilometers.

Massive Stars in NGC 6357
9.10.2008

Massive Stars lie within NGC 6357, an expansive emission nebula complex some 8,000 light-years away in the tail of the constellation Scorpius. In fact, positioned just below center in this close-up view...

NGC 1333 Stardust
18.04.2009

NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud.

Sunset at the Spiral Jetty
4.12.2010

In dwindling twilight at an August day's end, these broad dark bands appeared in the sky for a moment, seen from Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty on the eastern shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Great Orion Nebulae
13.09.2011

The Great Nebula in Orion, also known as M42, is one of the most famous nebulas in the sky. The star forming region's glowing gas clouds and hot young stars...

Gaia's Milky Way
27.04.2018

This grand allsky view of our Milky Way and nearby galaxies is not a photograph. It's a map based on individual measurements for nearly 1.7 billion stars. The astronomically rich data set used...

Stars over an Erupting Volcano
3.03.2021

Mt. Etna has been erupting for hundreds of thousands of years. Located in Sicily, Italy, the volcano produces lava fountains over one kilometer high. Mt. Etna is not only one of the most active...

Perseverance Takes a Spin
6.03.2021

After arriving at Jezero Crater on Mars, Perseverance went for a spin on March 4. This sharp image from the car-sized rover's Navcam shows tracks left by its wheels in the martian soil. In preparation for operations on the surface of the Red Planet, its first drive lasted about 33 minutes.