Haunting Mars
31.10.1997

This Halloween, the news about Mars is good news - Mars Global Surveyor will resume aerobraking into a mapping orbit around the haunting red planet. Wide angle cameras onboard the spacecraft recently recorded this shadowy image of Olympus Mons, the Solar System's largest volcano, from an altitude of over 100 miles.

Southern Lights and Shuttle Glow
22.02.1998

A background of distant stars, sinuous and spiky bands of Southern Lights (Aurora Australis), and the faint glow of charged plasma (ionized atomic gas) surrounding the Space Shuttle Discovery's engines give this photo from the STS-39 mission an eerie, otherworldly look.

Space Walz
11.02.1997

Astronaut Carl Walz waves at his colleagues from the aft end of the Space Shuttle Discovery's payload bay - during a 1993 spacewalk to evaluate tools, tethers, and a foot restraint slated for use in the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

Comet Hale Bopp Over Val Parola Pass
14.03.2004

Comet Hale-Bopp became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights. Out away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show. Here Comet Hale-Bopp was photographed above Val Parola Pass in the Dolomite mountains surrounding Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

A Bucket Wheel Excavator on Earth
22.11.2006

Please wait while one of the largest mobile machines in the world crosses the road. The machine pictured above is a bucket-wheel excavator used in modern surface mining. Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways.

Collinder 399: The Coat Hanger
12.01.2007

Is this coat hanger a star cluster or an asterism? This cosmic hang-up has been debated over much of last century, as astronomers wondered whether this binocular-visible object is really a physically associated open cluster or a chance projection. Chance star projections are known as asterisms, an example of which is the popular Big Dipper.

Mercury and Jupiter at Sunset
18.03.2011

When warm sunset hues begin to fade, two celestial beacons now shine in the evening twilight, Mercury and Jupiter. Wandering away from the Sun in planet Earth's sky, Mercury will offer good views this month as spring approaches in the northern hemisphere where the ecliptic plane makes a steep angle with the western horizon.

Northern Summer on Titan
20.06.2020

Today's solstice brings summer to planet Earth's northern hemisphere. But the northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn over three years ago on May 24, 2017. Orbiting the gas giant, Saturn's moon Titan experiences the Saturnian seasons.

Jets from the Necklace Nebula
18.05.2021

What celestial body wears the Necklace Nebula? First, analyses indicate that the Necklace is a planetary nebula, a gas cloud emitted by a star toward the end of its life. Also, what appears to be diamonds in the Necklace are actually bright knots of glowing gas.

Jupiter and the Geminid
28.12.2023

For a brief moment, this brilliant fireball meteor outshone Jupiter in planet Earth's night. The serendipitous image was captured while hunting meteors under cold Canadian skies with a camera in timelapse mode on December 14, near the peak of the Geminid meteor shower.