The Space Shuttle Docked with Mir
20.10.2002

Before there was the International Space Station, the reigning orbiting spaceport was Russia's Mir. Pictured above in 1995, the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the segmented Mir. During shuttle mission STS-71, astronauts answered questions from school students over amateur radio and performed science experiments aboard Spacelab.

Globular Cluster M3
15.09.2003

This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before humankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed, and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a young Milky Way Galaxy.

An Unexpected Asteroid Valentine
14.02.2000

Maybe the Moon owns our hearts, but this won't stop the occasional asteroid from sending us a valentine. Friday, to the surprise of many, the NEAR mission on approach to asteroid 433 EROS photographed what appears to be a heart-shaped depression.

Return at Sunrise
13.03.2015

Thursday, shortly after local sunrise over central Asia, this Soyuz spacecraft floated over a sea of golden clouds during its descent by parachute through planet Earth's dense atmosphere. On board were Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore of NASA and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).

Martian Chiaroscuro
14.04.2018

Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24, 2014 by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers.

Neighboring Galaxy: The Large Magellanic Cloud
4.08.2001

The brightest galaxy visible from our own Milky Way Galaxy is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Visible predominantly from Earth's Southern Hemisphere, the LMC is the second closest galaxy, neighbor to the Small Magellanic Cloud, and one of eleven known dwarf galaxies that orbit our Milky Way Galaxy.

Erupting Volcanoes on Io
5.08.1996

Jupiter's moon Io has active volcanoes. The Voyager spacecraft caught several erupting when they passed the energetic moon in 1979. In the above picture, several of Io's volcanoes are visible and one is seen actually erupting.

Beefing Up the International Space Station
17.12.2002

The International Space Station (ISS) will be the largest human-made object ever to orbit the Earth. The station is so large that it could not be launched all at once -- it is being built piecemeal with large sections added continually by flights of the Space Shuttle.

The Southern Sky from the International Space Station
7.05.2003

Look up from Earth's South Pole, and this stellar starscape is what you might see. Alternatively, this patch of sky is also visible from many southern locations as well as the orbiting International Space Station, where the above image was recently recorded.

Venus Unveiled
3.09.2005

The surface of Venus is perpetually covered by a veil of thick clouds and remains hidden from even the powerful telescopic eyes of earth-bound astronomers. But in the early 1990s, using imaging radar...