Cassini To Saturn
29.08.1997

Scheduled for launch in October, the Cassini spacecraft will spend seven years traveling through the Solar System -- its destination, Saturn. On arrival Cassini will begin an ambitious mission of exploration which will include parachuting a probe to the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle
19.02.1996

Comet Swift-Tuttle, shown above in false color, is the largest object known to make repeated passes near the Earth. It is also one of the oldest known periodic comets with sightings spanning two millennia.

Blue Comet Meets Blue Stars
12.02.2018

What's that heading for the Pleiades star cluster? It appears to be Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS), but here, appearances are deceiving. On the right and far in the background, the famous Pleiades star cluster is dominated by blue light from massive young stars.

Enhanced Color Caloris
10.07.2008

The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins. Created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body, the basin spans about 1,500 kilometers and is seen in yellowish hues in this enhanced color mosaic.

Six Worlds for Kepler 11
3.02.2011

Six worlds orbit Kepler-11, a sunlike star 2,000 light-years distant in the constellation Cygnus. The new discovery, based on data from NASA's planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, makes the Kepler-11 system the fullest exoplanetary system known.

Moons at Twilight
4.02.2022

Even though Jupiter was the only planet visible in the evening sky on February 2, it shared the twilight above the western horizon with the Solar System's brightest moons. In a single exposure...

Enhanced Color Caloris
4.03.2015

The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins, created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body.

Hale Bopp: A Continuing Tail
20.02.1998

Where is Hale-Bopp now? The Great Comet of 1997, one of the largest and most active comets ever, is outbound about 400 million miles from the sun. Too faint for viewing without telescopes or binoculars, Hale-Bopp is presently positioned in the very southerly constellation of Pictor.

Vega and Comet 12P Pons-Brooks
8.12.2023

On December 4, periodic Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks shared this telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth's night, Vega is some 25 light-years distant while the much fainter comet was about 21 light-minutes away.

The Ecliptic Plane
27.09.1997

The Plane of the Ecliptic is illustrated in this Clementine star tracker camera image which reveals (from right to left) the Moon lit by Earthshine, the Sun's corona rising over the Moon's dark limb, and the planets Saturn, Mars, and Mercury.