Rays from an Unexpected Aurora
5.08.2002

This aurora was a bit of a surprise. For starters, last Friday morning, no intense auroral activity was expected at all. Possibly more surprising, however, the aurora appeared to show an usual structure of green rays from some locations.

A View from Venus: Rift Valley
24.06.1996

Color information from the Soviet Venera landers and radar data from the Magellan spacecraft were used to construct this striking perspective view of the Venusian landscape. (In this computer generated image, the vertical scale has been exagerated.) In the foreground is the edge of a rift valley created by faulting in the crust of Venus.

Surveyor Hops
30.11.2002

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!

Nearby Spiral M33
2.12.2002

Spiral galaxy M33 is a mid-sized member of our Local Group of Galaxies. M33 is also called the Triangulum Galaxy for the constellation in which it resides. About four times smaller (in radius) than...

A Southern Sky View
26.02.1998

From horizon to horizon, the night sky above Loomberah, New South Wales, Australia was photographed by astronomer Gordon Garradd on March 22, 1996. Garradd used a home made all-sky camera with a fish-eye lens, resulting in a circular 200 degree field of view.

M100: A Grand Design
6.06.1998

Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a Grand Design spiral galaxy. A large galaxy of over 100 billion or so stars with well defined spiral arms, it is similar to our own Milky Way.

The Sagittarius Dwarf Tidal Stream
30.09.2003

Is our Milky Way Galaxy out to lunch? Recent wide field images and analyses now indicate that our home galaxy is actually still in the process of devouring its closest satellite neighbor. This unfortunate...

Aurora from Space
5.11.2005

From the ground, spectacular auroras seem to dance high above. But the International Space Station (ISS) orbits at nearly the same height as many auroras, sometimes passing over them, and sometimes right through them. Still, the auroral electron and proton streams pose no direct danger to the ISS.

The Veil Nebula Unveiled
6.12.2005

These wisps of gas are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. Many thousands of years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, pictured above. At the time...

3D Face on Mars
21.04.2007

Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze down on this weathered mesa on Mars. Of course, described as a rock formation which resembles a human head in a 1976 NASA press release, this mesa is also famous as the Face on Mars.