Celestial Bodies and Phenomena

Images of planetary surfaces and astronomical phenomena, featuring detailed textures and colors of Mercury, Jupiter's storm, and Titan.

Pluto and Charon
Pluto and Charon
123 assets in this story
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Images from Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) show a portion of Ceres' cratered northern hemisphere, taken on May 16, 2015.
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This VIS image shows part of the floor of Antoniadi Crater, a very large crater located north of Syrtis Major Planum. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image. Orbit Number 61311 Latitude 21.1681 Longitude 62.1541 Instrument VIS Captured 2015-10-10 02 38
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Eros' Bland Butterscotch Colors
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Lunar Panorama #158 1967 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NASA's Lunar Orbiter program of 1966-67 was the agency's final and most successful photographic project before the crewed lunar landings of the Apollo program. Over the course of one year, five probes systematically photographed 99 percent of the lunar surface. The Orbiters investigated potential landing site, revealing features as small as one foot in diameter. The program used a film-based robotic imaging system designed by the Eastman Kodak Company. The images were captured on 70 mm film with a dual-lens camera, chemically processed on board, scanned in strips, and transmitted via radio back to earth. At Eastman Kodak headquarters in Rochester, New York, technicians transferred the scanned strips onto sheets of large-format film from which they printed the final photographs. This stunning panorama, which shows the moon's curved horizon at either end, captures the harsh beauty of the lunar landscape as it a
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Spindle whorl 5th-3rd millennium B.C. Iran This ceramic spindle whorl was excavated in 1937 at a prehistoric site in the vicinity of Nishapur in northeastern Iran. While Nishapur itself was founded by the Sasanian king Shapur I (reigned ca. A.D. 241-272), this whorl shows that human habitation there goes back to the prehistoric period. Furthermore, the prehistoric pottery from Nishapur has close affinities with ceramic materials from Central Asia rather than with contemporary sites in Iran, meaning that in this period its inhabitants were likely culturally linked to their neighbors to the east. At the same time, Nishapurs location on what later became known as the Great Khorasan Road suggests that it was part of the trade network that facilitated the import of precious stones such as lapis lazuli, carnelian and turquoise from Central Asia to Mesopotamia.Spindle whorls were used to make thread. A dowel was inserted through the hole, to which plant fibers or wool were attached. The whor
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Planet in space with atmospheric and land masses planet in space with atmospheric and land masses
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3D Globe Asia Globe model with detailed topography without water. Asia. 3d rendering isolated on white background. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/JacekxFulawkax 10232691
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These three radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 were obtained on Dec. 15-17, by coordinating observations with NASA's 230-foot (70-meter) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) 330-foot (100-meter) Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The radar image on the left was obtained on Dec. 15 when asteroid 2003 SD220 was 2.8 million miles (4.5 million kilometers) from Earth. The radar image in the middle was generated from data collected on Dec. 16 when the asteroid was 2.5 million miles (4.0 million kilometers) from Earth. The image on the right was obtained on Dec. 17 when 2003 SD220 was 2.2 million miles (3.6 million kilometers) from Earth. The spatial resolution on the images is as fine as 12 feet (3.7 meters) per pixel. The radar images reveal the asteroid is at least one mile (1.6 kilometers) long. Asteroid 2003 SD220 was discovered on Sept. 29, 2003, by astronomers at the Lowell Observatory Near-
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Digital Illustration of Uranus' Appearance From Different Angles
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Fantasy planet, satellites in space, far alien world isolated flat cartoon icon. Vector galaxy exoplanet or deep space planet with desert surface covered by craters, moon or asteroid, habitable place. Galaxy exoplanet desert planet, craters isolated
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P-21742 BW Range 6 million kilometers (3.72 million miles) This Voyager 2 image shows the region of Jupiter extending from the equator to the southern polar latitudes in the neighborhood of the Great Red Spot. A white oval, different from the one observed in a similiar position at the time of the Voyager 1 encounter, is situated south of the Great Red Spot. The region of white clouds now extends from east of the red spot and around its northern boundary, preventing small cloud vortices from circling the feature. The disturbed region west of the red spot has also changed since the equivalent Voyager 1 image. It shows more small scale structure and cloud vortices being formed out of the wave structures.
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Asteroid, illustration
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S73-32867 (21 Aug. 1973) --- The solar sphere viewed through the Skylab solar physics experiment (S082) Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroheliographis seen in this photographic reproduction taken from a color television transmission made by a TV camera aboard the Skylab space station in Earth orbit. The solar chromosphere and lower corona are much hotter than the surface of the sun characterized by the white light emissions. This image was recorded during the huge solar prominence which occurred on Aug. 21, 1973.
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Convection in Saturn's Southern Vortex
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Range 4.3 million km. ( 2.7 million miles ) Southeast of the Great Red Spot, as seen at upper left, this photograph taken by Voyager I also shows one of Jupiter's 40 year old white ovals, seen at middle left. Along with a variety of other atmospheric features, and flow in and around the ovals, the smallest details in this photograph represent features 80 km. ( 45 miles ) across.
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P-29510BW Range 150,000 kilometers (90,000 miles) Nearly the full disk of Miranda can be seen in this clear-filter image taken by Voyager's narrow-angle camera. At this resolution, about 2.7 km (1.7 mi), only two distinct terrain types are visible. One is a bright, rugged, heavily-cratered region seen along the bottom of the disk and extending to the top in a narrow band. The second terrain type is a topographically lower, darker, grooved terrain along the two upper sides in this image. The dark areas had been visible for several days before closest approach in lower-resolution views of the satellite. Scarps, or cliffs, visible along the limbs have a rugged relief of several kilometers in height.
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Three Surface Changes on Io
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Macro shot of a soap bubble simulating a planet
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supernova explosion in space A supernova explosion in space illustration Copyright: xZoonar.com/magannx 14215925
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This false-color view of the rings of Uranus was made from images taken by NASA's Voyager 2 on Jan. 21, 1986. All nine known rings are visible here; the somewhat fainter, pastel lines seen between them are contributed by the computer enhancement.
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Photo by Peter McGregor Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter; impact of Fragment G of Comet Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter. The fireball is seen 12 minutes after impact at 2.34 microns. The impact A site is seen on the oposite limb of the planet. Image at 2.34 microns with CASPIR by Peter McGregor ANU 2.3m telescope at Siding Spring. (JPL Ref; P-44419)
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Asteroids
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Taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), this image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, reveals its true shape to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern of etchings in its walls. The arc-like etchings could be the remnants of discrete shells ejected from the star when it was younger, flow instabilities, or could result from the action of a narrow beam of matter impinging on the hourglass walls. According to one theory on the formation of planetary nebulae, the hourglass shape is produced by the expansion of a fast stellar wind within a slowly expanding cloud, which is denser near its equator than near its poles. Hubble has also revealed other features in MyCn18 which are completely new and unexpected. For example, there is a pair of intersecting elliptical rings in the central region which appear to be the rims of a smaller hourglass. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken i