Astronomical Phenomena and Discoveries

Images revealing celestial bodies and events, including comet outbursts and moons, captured through advanced astronomical instruments.

An image series over a five-hour period shows a 'full-halo' coronal mass ejection (CME) exploding out from the Sun at over 1000 km/s. The images taken by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) C3 instrument of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show the expanding cloud of particles in visible light. The CME struck the Earth's magnetosphere two and a half days after the eruption with little effect.

Titan's Surface Revealed

This display shows highly processed images of the outburst of comet Tempel 1 between June 22 and 23, 2005. The pictures were taken by NASA's Deep Impact's medium-resolution camera.

Himalia, a Small Moon of Jupiter

This image composite shows a warped and magnified view of a galaxy discovered by the Herschel Space Observatory, one of five such galaxies uncovered by the infrared telescope. The galaxy, referred to as 'SDP 81' is the yellow dot in the left image.

This (Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph) LASCO C2 sequence of six consecutive images taken over one and a half hours on 11 November 2002 shows the propagation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with a relatively small M1 flare. Flares are intense releases of radiant energy, often associated with violent mass motions such as eruptive prominences and CME's. The bright material in the center of the outward-propagating CME is probably denser, cooler prominence material. The Sun, bl

Astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of high-energy particles called a wind nebula around a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star, or magnetar, for the first time. The find offers a unique window into the properties, environment and outburst history of magnetars, which are the strongest magnets in the universe. A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. Each one compresses the equivalent mass of half a million Earths into a ball just 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, or about the length of New York's Manhattan Island. Neutron stars are most commonly found as pulsars, which produce radio, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays at various locations in their surrounding magnetic fields. When a pulsar spins these regions in our direction, astronomers detect pulses of emission, hence the name. Read more a href= http //go.nasa.gov/28PVUop rel= nofollow go.nasa.gov/28PVUop /a

The left image is an airbrush map of the surface of Ganymede from NASA's Voyager data. The small square shows the location of Antum crater, target of the image from NASA's Galileo spacecraft on the right.

Io's Aurorae

An image series over a five-hour period shows a 'full-halo' coronal mass ejection (CME) exploding out from the Sun at over 1000 km/s. The images taken by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) C3 instrument of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show the expanding cloud of particles in visible light. The CME struck the Earth's magnetosphere two and a half days after the eruption with little effect.

Scientists spotted what appear to be thunderheads on Jupiter bright white cumulus clouds similar to those that bring thunderstorms on Earth, at the outer edges of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The photos were taken by NASA's Galileo' orbiter on June 26, 1996.

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the farthest spectroscopically confirmed galaxy observed to date (inset). It was identified in this Hubble image of a field of galaxies in the CANDELS survey (Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey). NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope also observed the unique galaxy. The W. M. Keck Observatory was used to obtain a spectroscopic redshift (z=7.7), extending the previous redshift record. Measurements of the stretching of light, or redshift, give the most reliable distances to other galaxies. This source is thus currently the most distant confirmed galaxy known, and it appears to also be one of the brightest and most massive sources at that time. The galaxy existed over 13 billion years ago. The near-infrared light image of the galaxy (inset) has been colored blue as suggestive of its young, and hence very blue, stars. The CANDELS field is a combination of visible-light and near-infrared exposures.

This zoomed-in view of a portion of the all-sky survey from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer shows a collection of quasar candidates (shown in yellow circles). Quasars are supermassive black holes feeding off gas and dust.

This schematic graphic illustrates the bombardments that lead to colorful splotches and bands on the surfaces of several icy moons of Saturn.

Indigo Eyes

Saturn's magnetosphere is seen for the first time in this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft on June 21, 2004. A magnetosphere is a magnetic envelope of charged particles that surrounds some planets, including Earth. It is invisible to the human eye, but Cassini's Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument was able to detect the hydrogen atoms (represented in red) that escape it. The emission from these hydrogen atoms comes primarily from regions far from Saturn, well outside the planet's rings, and perhaps beyond the orbit of the largest moon Titan. The image represents the first direct look at the shape of Saturn's magnetosphere. Previously, NASA's Voyager mission had inferred what Saturn's magnetosphere would look like in the same way that a blind person might feel the shape of an elephant. With Cassini, the elephant has been revealed in a picture. This picture was taken by the ion and neutral camera, one of three sensors that comprise the magnetosphereic imaging instrument, from a distan

Neutral Gas Cloud Around Titan

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared image of a giant halo of very fine dust around the young star HR 8799, located 129 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

Jupiter Torus Diagram

This image shows NASA'S Dawn scientists' best guess to date of what the surface of the protoplanet Vesta might look like; it incorporates the best data on dimples and bulges from ground-based telescopes and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

This infrared image, showing thermal radiation at a wavelength of 9.7 microns, was obtained by the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii. The bright white and yellow features at bottom are the aftermath of an impactor hitting Jupiter on July 19, 2009.

Infrared images from instruments at Kitt Peak National Observatory (left) and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope document the outburst of HOPS 383, a young protostar in the Orion star-formation complex.

This artist's impression depicts the accretion disc surrounding a black hole, in which the inner region of the disc precesses. 'Precession' means that the orbit of material surrounding the black hole changes orientation around the central object.

This set of images from NASA's Cassini mission shows the evolution of a massive thunder-and-lightning storm that circled all the way around Saturn and fizzled when it ran into its own tail.

This image composite shows comet Tempel 1 in infrared light . The infrared picture highlights the warm, or sunlit, side of the comet, where NASA's Deep Impact probe later hit.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently captured these images of the star Vega, located 25 light years away in the constellation Lyra.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained these false-color images of a circular feature in a region known as Xanadu on Saturn's moon Titan. The images show Titan in infrared wavelengths of radiation.

This image shows the HR 8799 planets with starlight optically suppressed and data processing conducted to remove residual starlight. Project 1640, NASA's JPL used the Palomar Observatory near San Diego to obtain detailed spectra of the four planets.

These computer-generated images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope chart the development of severe weather patterns on the highly eccentric exoplanet HD 80606b during the days after its closest approach to its parent star.

Sixty for Saturn

This single frame from a sequence of images shows sunspots as viewed by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from June 27 to July 8, 2015; the rover was in position to see the opposite side of the sun from the side facing Earth during this period.

This image from NASA's Dawn mission shows topography of the giant asteroid Vesta and a map of Vesta's gravity variations.

Seeking Information on Mercury's Mineralogy

During NASA's MESSENGER's four-year orbital mission, the spacecraft's X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) instrument mapped out the chemical composition of Mercury and discovered striking regions of chemical diversity.

NASA's NEOWISE mission captured images of Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring. The infrared pictures reveal a comet that is active and very dusty.

MESSENGER's Polar Orbit

Astronomers combined observations from three different observatories (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, red; Hubble, green; Chandra X-ray Observatory, blue) to produce this colorful, multiwavelength image of the intricate remains of Supernova 1987A.

Digital Illustration of Neptune From Different Angles

The Beauty of Balanchine

The active volcano Prometheus on Jupiter's moon Io was imaged by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during the close flyby of Io on Oct.10, 1999. The spectrometer can detect active volcanoes on Io by measuring their heat in the near-infrared wavelengths.

Three views of an escaping atmosphere around Mars, obtained by NASA's MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph, are shown here.

These two images show 'stacked' Chandra images for two different classes of distant, massive galaxy detected with NASA's Spitzer. Image stacking is a procedure used to detect emission from objects that is too faint to be detected in single images.

Earth's magnetosphere, illustration

This map composed of images NASA's Galileo and Voyager missions shows the hemisphere of Europa that might be affected by plume deposits. The view is centered at -65 degrees latitude, 183 degrees longitude.

Mammography of a 66 years old woman. Normal. Can illustrate breast cancer.

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the southern high-latitudes region of Mars from Mar. 19-Apr. 14, 2009, a period when regional dust storms occurred along the retreating edge of carbon-dioxide frost in the seasonal south polar cap.

Saturn's Rings in the Ultraviolet, From Cassini

This illustration summarizes the almost 14-billion-year-long history of our universe. It shows the main events that occurred between the initial phase of the cosmos.

Uranus

Nebula No, It's the Cat's Eye Crater!

Europa

Look Back -- Look Ahead

Digital Illustration of Pluto's Rotation

This false-color view taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft is one of a panel of three images of Saturn's moon Iapetus showing the boundary of the global 'color dichotomy' on the hemisphere of this moon facing away from Saturn.

Asteroid Collision In Asteroid Belt P/2010 A2. 2010 two asteroids collided in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The object was discovered and named P/2010 A2 January 6, 2010 in the asteroid belt.image obtained with Hubble Space Telescope

This image is one of two images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope comparing the movement of Jupiter's clouds.

Illumination Map of Mercury's South Pole

New composite images made from NASA's Cassini spacecraft data are the most detailed global infrared views ever produced of Saturn's moon Enceladus. And data used to build those images provides strong evidence that the northern hemisphere of the moon has been resurfaced with ice from its interior. During Cassini's 13-year exploration of the Saturn system, the spacecraft's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) collected light both visible to the human eye and infrared light reflected off the planet, its rings, and its 10 major icy moons. VIMS then separated light into its various wavelengths, information that tells scientists more about the makeup of the material reflecting it. Combined with detailed images captured by Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem, the VIMS data was used to make the new global spectral map of Enceladus. It shows that infrared signals correlate with the geologic activity known to be ongoing at the south pole, where plumes of ice grains and vapor shoo

Vintage Photograph. a Jupiter a shadow of satellite seen on disk b both satellite and shadow seen taken about 50 minutes after with 200 inch Hale telescope.

Two tall volcanic plumes and the rings of red material they have deposited onto surrounding surface areas appear in images taken of Jupiter's moon Io by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft in late December 2000 and early January 2001.

A Global Map of Mercury's Surface

On Feb. 21, 1997, the Galileo spacecraft observed Io in daylight from a range of approximately 703,000 km (440,000 miles). Loki Patera, historically the most active and persistent hot spot on Io, is located on the hemisphere of Io always facing Jupiter.

This frame from a movie begins with the launch of NASA's Deep Impact on Jan. 12, 2005, from Cape Canaveral, Fla. On July 4, 2005, the mission released a probe into Comet Tempel 1, revealing its pristine, inner material.

This is the most detailed view to date of the entire surface of the dwarf planet Pluto, as constructed from multiple NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken from 2002 to 2003.

NASA's Galileo has eyes that can see more than ours can. By looking at what we call the infrared wavelengths, types and sizes of material on the surface of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, can be determined.

In 1995, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered a new great dark spot, located in the northern hemisphere of the planet Neptune. Because the planet's northern hemisphere was tilted away from Earth, the new feature appeared near the limb of the planet.

A vortex that was part of a giant storm on Saturn slowly dissipates over time in this set of false color images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

This pair of visible-light and near-infrared photos from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows the giant star N6946-BH1 before and after it vanished out of sight by imploding to form a black hole. The left image shows the star, which is 25 times the mass of our sun, as it looked in 2007. In 2009, the star shot up in brightness to become over 1 million times more luminous than our sun for several months. But then it seemed to vanish, as seen in the right panel image from 2015. A small amount of infrared light has been detected from where the star used to be. This radiation probably comes from debris falling onto a black hole. The black hole is located 22 million light-years away in the spiral galaxy NGC 6946.

This image is from an animation that shows the evolution of the 2018 Mars global dust storm from late May to September. The animation shows the optical depth tau -- a measure of how much light is being blocked by atmospheric dust as measured by the Mars Climate Sounder instrument onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA's Opportunity rover is marked with a red dot. The dust is mapped to two opposite hemispheres of Mars, giving a view of the full globe. Certain features of the Martian terrain, including Olympus Mons, the three volcanoes in the equatorial region, and Vallis Marineris, are also visible. The data shows the daily global column of dust, illustrating how the dust behaves over the course of the storm. The storm has a complex growth affecting most of Mars over the first month. It then remains near the peak for three weeks. Finally, the storm starts a multi-month decay back to regular weather. A color scale in the lower right-hand corner of the animation explains the col

Reportage in the cardiology department of Saint-Philibert hospital (GHICL) in Lille, France. OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) showing an artery fitted with a stent.

The northern and southern hemispheres of Saturn's moon Mimas are seen in these polar stereographic maps, mosaicked from the best-available Cassini images. Each map is centered on one of the poles, and surface coverage extends to the equator. Grid lines show latitude and longitude in 30-degree increments. Unlabeled versions of these maps are also provided. The scale in the full-size versions of these maps is 710 feet (216 meters) per pixel. The resolution of the map is 16 pixels per degree. The mean radius of Mimas used for projection of these maps is 123.2 miles (198.2 kilometers). The mosaics contain new data from two close flybys of Mimas in Nov. 2016 and Feb. 2017.

Seasonal changes in Earth's surface albedo over a 5-year period are seen in these image summary maps from NASA's Terra spacecraft.

The magnificent and dusty spiral arms of the nearby galaxy Messier 81 are highlighted in these NASA Spitzer Space Telescope images.

NASA image release April 6, 2011 NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory completed this four-hour exposure of GRB 110328A on April 4. The center of the X-ray source corresponds to the very center of the host galaxy imaged by Hubble (red cross).

Radar Image of Mercury's North Pole

The Many Colors of Mercury

Glowing Titan

Solar system 3d illustration planets on orbit black background

Naming New Lands - September Flyby (annotated)

Clouds move above the large methane lakes and seas near the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

A visualization of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, as detected by ESA's Planck satellite over the entire sky.

Vector illustration flying comets in open cosmos

Digital Illustration of Pluto's Rotation

This montage shows changing faces of the Sun, recorded daily during the 59 days spent in orbit by Skylab's second crew. The Sun spun more than two full turns around its axis. Solar rotation is apparent in these daily portraits, as are real changes on the Sun. Bright features are centers of activity on the Sun. This image contains daily records from August 17, 1973 through September 5, 1973.

Slower Spinning Rings #1

There's no way to tell from this SOHO image whether the halo CME on March 5, 2013, originated from the front or far of the sun. But the STEREO spacecraft were watching the sun from the sides and showed it was from the far side. The bright planet is Venus.

. Io Over the Years. This composite image depicts the visible changes on the surface of Jupiter's moon Io in the region around Volund, as seen by three NASA spacecraft. The top left image of Io was taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft on May 16, 2023. An annotated version of the same image at top right highlights the location of the Volund region where volcanic activity is known to take place. The bottom left image shows the Volund region as imaged by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in September 1996. The image is crisper than the one of the Volund region at bottom center - taken by NASA's New Horizons mission in February 2007 - because the Galileo's flyby distance was much closer. At bottom right is a zoomed-in view of the above JunoCam image with annotations highlighting the changes to the active volcanoes known as Volund A and Volund B. The growth of the darker gray diffuse areas in the vicinity of Volund A and B indicate two lava flows that have increased in size and

Map of Mimas - June 2008

This illustration shows three possible scenarios for the evolution of asteroid belts. At the top, a Jupiter-size planet migrates through the asteroid belt, scattering material and inhibiting the formation of life on planets.

The LAT's sensitivity to gamma rays is greatest in the center of its wide field of view and decreases toward the edge. LAT scientists regard the effective limit of the instrument's field of view to be 78.5 degrees (red circle) from its center.

Spirit's Successful Landing

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars' moon Deimos.

Mapping Ions around Mercury

Hubble Space Telescope Resolves Volcanoes on Io

The ozone hole; over 30 years of satellite observations. 1979-2012. Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about four per cent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's stratosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone around Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. In addition to these well-known stratospheric phenomena, there are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events. The blue and purple colours are where there is the least ozone, and the greens, yellows, and reds are where there is more ozone

Global Color Variations on Callisto

Comet ISON makes its appearance into the higher-resolution HI-1 camera on the STEREO-A spacecraft. The dark "clouds" coming from the right are density enhancements in the solar wind, causing all the ripples in comet Encke's tail. These kinds of solar wind interactions give us valuable information about solar wind conditions near the sun. Note the STEREO-A spacecraft is currently located on the other side of the Sun, so it sees a totally different geometry to what we see from Earth.

This extreme false-color view of Hyperion shows color variation across the impact-blasted surface of the tumbling moon

This false-color picture of Uranus, obtained by NASA's Voyager on Jan. 14, 1986, shows a discrete cloud seen as a bright streak near the planet's limb.

Jupiter's Main and Gossamer Ring Structures

This image shows brown dwarf HIP 79124 B, located 23 times as far from its host star as Earth is from the sun.

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