Airglow Over Germany
5.09.2012

Does air glow? It does, but it is usually hard to see. When conditions are right, however, a faint glow about 90 kilometers up can be observed, most easily with a wide-angle long-duration camera exposure.

Descent To Jupiter
8.12.1995

Hours ago, at about 5:00 pm EST (2200 GMT) December 7, Galileo's descent probe slammed into Jupiter's atmosphere. Above is an artist's vision of the probe's planned descent from a dramatic perspective.

A Strange Streak Imaged in Australia
7.12.2004

Meteor experts don't think it's a meteor. Atmospheric scientists don't think it's lightning. The photographer insists that the streak and flash on the above image has not been created digitally. So what is it? Nobody is sure.

A Supercell Thunderstorm Over Texas
13.06.2021

Is that a cloud or an alien spaceship? It's an unusual and sometimes dangerous type of thunderstorm cloud called a supercell. Supercells may spawn damaging tornados, hail, downbursts of air, or drenching rain. Or they may just look impressive.

Night on Venus in Infrared from Orbiting Akatsuki
7.06.2016

Why is Venus so different from Earth? To help find out, Japan launched the robotic Akatsuki spacecraft which entered orbit around Venus late last year after an unplanned five-year adventure around the inner Solar System.

A Raging Storm System on Saturn
26.12.2011

It is one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen late last year, the above cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn started larger than the Earth and soon spread completely around the planet.

Space Station Vista: Planet and Galaxy
18.01.2017

If you could circle the Earth aboard the International Space Station, what might you see? Some amazing vistas, one of which was captured in this breathtaking picture in mid-2015. First, visible at the top, are parts of the space station itself including solar panels.

Mysterious Spokes in Saturns Rings
27.11.2006

What causes the mysterious spokes in Saturn's rings? Visible on the left of the above image as ghostlike impressions, spokes were first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft that buzzed by Saturn in the early 1980s. Their existence was unexpected, and no genesis hypothesis has ever become accepted.

Beneath Jupiter's Clouds
23.01.1996

This near-infrared image of Jupiter was made using instrumentation at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, located on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, in support of the Galileo mission to Jupiter. The brightest spots...

Saturn Storm Panoramas
8.07.2011

These tantalizing panoramas follow a remarkable giant storm encircling the northern hemisphere of ringed planet Saturn. Still active, the roiling storm clouds were captured in near-infrared images recorded by the Cassini spacecraft on February 26 and stitched into the high resolution, false-color mosaics.