Sky Full of SARs
17.08.2024

On August 11 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from a rotating planet. With a small satellite on board its mission was dubbed A Sky Full of SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites), departing for low Earth orbit from Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand's north island.

Deimos Before Sunrise
24.05.2025

Deimos takes 30 hours and 18 minutes to complete one orbit around the Red Planet. That's a little more than one Martian day or sol which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes long, so Deimos drifts westward across the Martian sky.

In A Grand Canyon On Mars
12.02.1998

In a grand canyon on Mars, steep slopes fall away from a smooth plateau revealing striking layered rock formations. The canyon is part of the Valles Marineris, a 2,500 mile long system of canyons cutting across the Martian equator.

The Regolith of Asteroid Eros
3.03.2002

From fifty kilometers above asteroid Eros, the surface inside one of its largest craters appears covered with an unusual substance: regolith. The thickness and composition of the surface dust that is regolith remains a topic of much research.

Moon Shadow Moves Over Africa
9.12.2002

When the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth last week, the result was a solar eclipse. Such an eclipse is total only for observers located along a narrow path corresponding to the ground track of the shadow's dark central portion or umbra.

Edge-On Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
28.02.1997

Is our Galaxy this thin? We believe so. The Milky Way, like NGC 891 pictured above, has the width of a typical spiral galaxy. Spirals have most of their bright stars, gas, and obscuring dust in a thin disk.

Detailing Hale-Bopp
8.05.1997

This enhanced composite image detailing structure in the coma and dust tail of Hale-Bopp was recorded May 5 - one day before the comet's passage from north to south across the plane of Earth's orbit.

The Gamma Ray Sky
21.03.1998

What if you could "see" gamma rays? If you could, the sky would seem to be filled with a shimmering high-energy glow from the most exotic and mysterious objects in the Universe.

Brain Crater on Mars
19.05.2004

What caused this unusual looking crater floor on Mars? Appearing at first glance to resemble the human brain, the natural phenomena that created the unusual texture on the floor of this Martian impact crater are currently under investigation. The light colored region surrounding the brain-textured region is likely sand dunes sculpted by winds.

The North Pole Of Mars
24.09.1998

The North Pole of Mars is capped by layers likely consisting of ice and dust deposited over millions of years. Imaged on September 12 - early Spring for Northern Mars - by the Mars Global Surveyor's camera, this synthesized wide-angle color view shows the rippled, eroded polar terrain covered with pinkish seasonal carbon dioxide frost.