Mercurys Sodium Tail
3.05.2022

That's no comet. Below the Pleiades star cluster is actually a planet: Mercury. Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun.

Rock Fingers on Mars
20.06.2022

There, just right of center, what is that? The surface of Mars keeps revealing new surprises with the recent discovery of finger-like rock spires. The small nearly-vertical rock outcrops were imaged last month by the robotic Curiosity rover on Mars.

3D Ingenuity
24.06.2023

The multicolor, stereo imaging Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance rover zoomed in to capture this 3D close-up (get out your red/blue glasses) of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on mission sol 45. That's Earth-date 2021 April 5.

Mars Pathfinder Super Pan
10.10.1997

Spectacular details of rover tracks, wind-driven soil, and textured rocks on the Martian surface fill this color mosaic. The view is north-northeast from the Sagan Memorial Station at the Pathfinder landing site on Mars.

Apollo 16: Exploring Plum Crater
20.12.1997

Apollo 16 spent three days on Earth's Moon in April 1972. The fifth lunar landing mission out of six, Apollo 16 was famous for deploying and using an ultraviolet telescope as the first lunar observatory, and for collecting rocks and data on the mysterious lunar highlands. In the above picture, astronaut John W.

Small Moon Epimetheus
29.04.2005

Small saturnian moon Epimetheus (ep-ee-MEE-thee-us) is at most 116 kilometers across. Its cratered surface and irregular shape are highlighted by dramatic shadows in this composite close-up image from the Cassini spacecraft. However, orbiting 91,000 kilometers above Saturn's cloud tops, Epimetheus is not alone.

Sigmoids Predict Solar Eruptions
16.03.1999

On the Sun, S marks the spot. Solar explosions have been discovered to explode preferentially from regions marked with this letter. The surface of the quiet Sun is a maze of hot gas and flowing magnetic fields. When two regions of high magnetic field strength approach each other, they typically pass uneventfully.

Colors of Mercury
1.03.2013

The colors of the solar system's innermost planet are enhanced in this tantalizing view, based on global image data from the Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER spacecraft. Human eyes would not discern the clear color differences but they are real none the less, indicating distinct chemical, mineralogical, and physical regions across the cratered surface.

Fly Over Pluto
18.07.2015

It took 9.5 years to get this close, but you can now take a virtual flight over Pluto in this animation of image data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum.

A Blue Blood Moon
3.10.2015

This sharp telescopic snapshot caught late September's Harvest Moon completely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow, at the beginning of a total lunar eclipse. It was the final eclipse in a tetrad, a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses.