A Spider Shaped Crater on Mercury
4.02.2008

Why does this crater on Mercury look like a spider? When the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft glided by the planet Mercury last month, it was able to image portions of the Sun's closest planet that had never been seen before.

Mercury as Revealed by MESSENGER
8.10.2008

The planet Mercury has been known since history has been recorded, but parts of the Solar System's innermost planet have never been seen like this before. Two days ago the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft buzzed past Mercury for the second time and imaged terrain mapped previously only by comparatively crude radar.

Ganymede Enhanced
20.09.2009

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has a surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges.

MESSENGER at Mercury
31.03.2011

On March 17, the MESSENGER spacecraft became the first to orbit Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet. This is its first processed color image since entering Mercury orbit. Larger, denser, and with almost twice the surface gravity of Earth's moon, Mercury still looks moon-like at first glance.

Saturns Moon Pan from Cassini
13.03.2017

Why does Saturn's moon Pan look so odd? Images taken last week from the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn have resolved the moon in unprecedented detail. The surprising images reveal a moon that looks something like a walnut with a slab through its middle.

Opportunity After the Storm
4.10.2018

On Mars dust storms can't actually blow spacecraft over, but they can blot out the Sun. Over three months ago a planet-wide dust storm caused a severe lack of sunlight for the Mars rover Opportunity at its location near the west rim of Endeavor crater.

Flying Over Asteroid Eros West End
17.04.2000

The robot spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker continues to orbit asteroid Eros. This condensed 40-minute long time-lapse sequence taken last month shows what it looks like to pass within 200 kilometers of Eros' west end. The north pole of the rotating mountain is toward the bottom of the picture.

In Chandor Chasma on Mars
31.05.2002

Scroll right and dive into a spectacular canyon on Mars. This daytime infrared view, recently recorded by the THEMIS camera on board the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft, covers a 30 by 175 kilometer swath running along the canyon floor.

A Glimpse of Titan's Surface
21.10.1995

The surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is normally hidden from view by its thick, hazy atmosphere. However, for the first time astronomers have been able to see surface features in images like the one above, made at near-infrared wavelengths with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Martian Moon Phobos from MGS
1.07.2003

Why is Phobos so dark? Phobos, the largest and innermost of two Martian moons, is the darkest moon in the entire Solar System. Its unusual orbit and color indicate that it may be a captured asteroid composed of a mixture of ice and dark rock.