Southern Moonscape
29.08.2024

The Moon's south pole is toward the top left of this detailed telescopic moonscape. Captured on August 23, it looks across the rugged southern lunar highlands. The view's foreshortened perspective heightens the impression of a dense field of craters and makes the craters themselves appear more oval shaped close to the lunar limb.

Odyssey Over Mars
21.03.2002

Scroll right and journey for 300 kilometers over Terra Sirenum in the cratered highlands of southern Mars. The infrared view, 32 kilometers wide, was recently recorded by the THEMIS camera on board the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

Southern Moonscape
5.02.2020

The Moon's south pole is near the top of this detailed telescopic view. Looking across the rugged southern lunar highlands it was captured from southern California, planet Earth. At the Moon's third quarter phase the lunar terminator, the sunset shadow line, is approaching from the left.

Alphonsus and Arzachel
16.07.2021

Point your telescope at tonight's first quarter Moon. Along the terminator, the shadow line between night and day, you might find these two large craters staring back at you with an owlish gaze. Alphonsus (left) and Arzachel are ancient impact craters on the north eastern shores of Mare Nubium, the lunar Sea of Clouds.

Burns Cliff on Mars
14.11.2004

The majestic walls of Endurance Crater contain layers of clues about the ancient past of Mars. In fact, the deeper the layer, the older the clue. The particular crater wall imaged above was dubbed Burns Cliff and was in front of the robot rover Opportunity last week.

Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel
8.02.2007

These three ancient, large impact craters lie on the north eastern shores of Mare Nubium, the lunar Sea of Clouds. Along the top of the stark mosaic (left to right) are the namesakes of Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel.

Deep Impact Spacecraft Hurtles Toward Comet
16.05.2005

What happens when you crash into a comet? That was a question considered by astronomers when they designed the Deep Impact mission, launched in January. This coming July 4, the Deep Impact spaceship will reach its target - Comet Tempel 1 -- and release an impactor over five times the mass of a person toward its surface.

Stereo Phobos
5.08.2022

Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Phobos, grooved moon of Mars! Captured in 2004 by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, the image data was recorded at a distance of about 200 kilometers from the martian moon.

MESSENGER s Degas View
22.06.2011

Now imaging inner planet Mercury from orbit, the MESSENGER spacecraft wide angle camera has returned this impressive color view of Degas Crater, with a full resolution of 90 meters per pixel. Named...

A Radar View of Titan
23.11.2004

Where are Titan's craters? Throughout our Solar System's five billion-year history, dangerous rocks and chunks of ice have continually slammed into planets and moons - usually creating numerous long lasting impact craters. When the robot spacecraft Cassini swooped past Saturn's moon Titan last month, however, radar images showed few craters.