Cassini Spacecraft Approaches Jupiter
11.10.2000

A new spacecraft has entered the outer Solar System: Cassini. Launched in 1997 and bound for Saturn in 2004, Cassini sent back the above image last week while approaching the giant planet Jupiter. Cassini joins the Galileo spacecraft currently in orbit around Jupiter in studying the gas giant and its moons.

Sputnik: Traveling Companion
7.10.2000

Sputnik means "traveling companion". Despite the innocuous sounding name, the launch of the Earth's first "artificial moon", Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 shocked the free world, setting in motion events which resulted in the creation of NASA and the race to the Moon.

Oceans Under Jupiter's Europa?
9.04.1997

Is there life beneath Europa? Today, new results are being announced (at about 2 pm EST) about the possibility of oceans under Jupiter's moon Europa. The existence of such oceans increases the likelihood that some sort of life exists beneath the fractured ice planes of Jupiter's smoothest satellite.

Surveyor Hops
21.11.1997

This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from images returned by the US Surveyor 6 lander. Surveyor 6 was not the first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing on the Moon ... but it was the first to land and then lift off again!

24 Million Kilometers to Saturn
31.05.2004

Next stop: Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is approaching Saturn and will fire its engines to break into orbit around the ringed giant on July 1. The robot spacecraft was launched in 1997 and rounded Jupiter in 2001.

Apollo 11: Onto a New World
20.07.2009

A human first set foot on another world on July 20, 1969. This world was Earth's own Moon. In honor of today's 40th anniversary, NASA has released a digitally restored video of this milestone in human history. Pictured above is Neil Armstrong preparing to take the historic first step.

Conjunction at Sunset
29.12.2011

While Comet Lovejoy entertained early morning risers in in the southern hemisphere, a lovely conjunction of a young crescent Moon and Venus graced western skies at sunset. Captured on December 26th the conjunction, with beautiful sunset colors above and below, is seen here over Viverone Lake near Turin, Italy.

Galileo Explores Europa
14.08.1996

Details of the crazed cracks criss-crossing Europa's frozen surface are apparent in this mosaic of the Galileo spacecraft's latest images of Jupiter's ice-covered moon. Curious white stripes, also seen by Voyager, are clearly visible marking the center of the wide dark fractures.

Io Rotating
30.12.1996

Are any volcanoes on Io currently erupting? To help answer this, scientists instructed the robot spacecraft Galileo to take hourly pictures of this moon of Jupiter prior to its most recent encounter. The most obvious changes in Io are due to the changing amount of sunlight reflected from the moon to the spacecraft.

Eclipse In The Shade
13.08.1999

Near the shadow of the moon under a shady tree, dozens of images of a 1994 solar eclipse in progress are visible in this striking picture from the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. What creates the multiple images?