Jupiter, Io, and Shadow
7.12.2002

Pictured above is the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, Io, superposed in front of the gas giant planet. To the left of Io is a dark spot that is Io's own shadow. A solar eclipse would be seen from within the shadow spot on Jupiter.

Jupiter: The Great Yellow Spot
11.03.1997

What happened to Jupiter's Great Red Spot? Operating at a chilly 55 degrees Kelvin, the Galileo Spacecraft's Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) recorded this composite image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot in late June 1996.

A Presidential Panorama of Mars
22.07.1997

Scroll right to unfold the latest panorama of the surface of Mars. For best viewing, click and hold on the right arrow icon at the bottom of your browser window. This image, released yesterday and dubbed a "presidential panorama" by the Mars Pathfinder team, shows in colorful detail the surroundings of the Sagan Memorial Station.

M1: Filaments of the Crab Nebula
8.02.1998

The Crab Nebula, filled with mysterious filaments, is the result of a star that exploded in 1054 AD. This spectacular supernova explosion was recorded by Chinese and (quite probably) Anasazi Indian astronomers. The filaments...

Starbirth in NGC 1808
23.03.1998

The center of galaxy NGC 1808 is bursting with new stars, but why? Being a barred spiral galaxy makes NGC 1808 somewhat similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy. But the disk of NGC 1808 (inset) is quite warped, and its center is unusually bright and blue.

A3827: Cluster Cannibal
31.08.1998

It was mealtime in galaxy cluster Abell 3827. The hungry cluster dominant galaxy in A3827's center is seen being fed. Breakfast included five smaller galaxies unfortunate enough to wander too close to the cluster's central supergiant galaxy. The remnants of these five galaxies can be seen in the center of this false-color picture.

The Great Nebula in Orion
27.09.2004

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, digitally sharpened images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust.

Alaska Aurora Sequence
28.12.2013

A remarkably intense auroral band flooded the northern night with shimmering colors on December 7. The stunning sequence captured here was made with a camera fixed to a tripod under cold, clear skies near Ester, just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Eclipse at Moonrise
11.10.2014

As the Moon rose and the Sun set on October 8, a lunar eclipse was in progress seen from Chongqing, China. Trailing through this composite time exposure, the rising Moon began as a dark reddened disk in total eclipse near the eastern horizon.

Pluto s Snakeskin Terrain
25.09.2015

A mountainous region informally known as Tartarus Dorsa sprawls some 530 kilometers (330 miles) across this Plutonian landscape. Recently downloaded from New Horizons, it combines blue, red, and infrared image data in an extended color view captured near the spacecraft's close approach to Pluto on July 14.