Apollo 11 Landing Site Panorama
30.08.2012

Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility.

Comet Wild 2s Nucleus from Stardust
3.01.2004

What does a comet nucleus look like? Yesterday the robot spacecraft Stardust answered this question by returning the most detailed images yet of the center of a comet. The icy centers of comets are usually hidden from Earth-bound telescopes by opaque dust and gas that boils off during approach to the Sun.

Bats And The Barren Moon
31.10.1998

This picture, taken as the Apollo 17 astronauts orbited the Moon in 1972, depicts the stark lunar surface around the Eratosthenes and Copernicus craters. Images of a Moon devoid of life are familiar to denizens of the space age.

A Window to the Once Secret Sky
13.04.2005

If there was a window nearby to the distant universe -- would you look through it? Quite possibly, there is, in the form of a small telescope. A local skykeeper could be a relative or a stranger and is frequently proud to show off the sky free of charge.

Mysterious White Rock Fingers on Mars
7.04.2008

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 that this is not correct.

Prometheus Remastered
5.04.2010

What does Saturn's shepherd moon Prometheus really look like? The raw images from the robotic Cassini spacecraft's January flyby of the small moon showed tantalizing clues on grainy images, but now that the Cassini team has digitally remastered these images, many more details have come out.

Eclipsed Moon in Infrared
15.09.2001

The total lunar eclipse of September 1996 disappointed many observers in North America who were cursed with cloudy skies. However, the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite had a spectacular view from Earth orbit and SPIRIT III, an onboard infrared telescope, was used to repeatedly image the moon during the eclipse.

A Landslide on Asteroid Vesta
28.11.2011

Asteroid Vesta is home to some of the most impressive cliffs in the Solar System. Pictured above near the image center is a very deep cliff running about 20 kilometers from top to bottom. The image was taken by the robotic Dawn spacecraft that began orbiting the 500-kilometer space rock earlier this year.

Europa: The Latest From Galileo
17.01.1997

Today, NASA revealed recent results from the Galileo Probe's December 19th flyby of Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon - including this close-up image of fractured and frozen terrrain. The highest resolution picture ever made...

Unusual Spires Found on Comet Wild 2
22.06.2004

How did unusual spires form on comet Wild 2? Close inspection of images taken of Comet Wild 2 by the passing Stardust spacecraft in January show numerous strange pinnacles as long as 100 meters long jutting off the surface. The pinnacles were unexpected - close-ups of other comets and asteroids show no such features.