Moons of the Solar System

These images depict celestial bodies Iapetus and Ceres, showcasing their unique surfaces and terrains, highlighting craters and mysterious dark regions.

The south pole of Saturn's moon Tethys, September 24, 2005
The south pole of Saturn's moon Tethys, September 24, 2005
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this wide-angle image showing the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The outlined area focuses on Baghdad Sulcus, a fracture in the south polar region.
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Cassini Encounters Iapetus
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This stunning false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon's surface. The view was obtained during NASA's Cassini close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005.
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This view of the asteroid 243 Ida is a mosaic of five image frames acquired by NASA's Galileo spacecraft's solid-state imaging system at ranges of 3,057 to 3,821 kilometers (1,900 to 2,375 miles) on August 28, 1993.
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This image from the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows surface details beginning to resolve as the spacecraft closes in on the giant asteroid Vesta on June 1, 2011, from a distance of about 300,000 miles (483,000 kilometers).
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These pictures of the Moon were taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft at (right photo) Dec.8, 1990 from a distance of almost 220,000 miles, and at (left photo) Dec. 9, 1990 at a range of more than 350,000 miles.
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Titan in Infrared Light
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Herschel Crater on Mimas
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Rhea and Dione seem like dark and light fraternal twins in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, with each of these two Saturnian moons displaying a large crater oriented similarly in the northern hemisphere.
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Clementine Observes the Moon, Solar Corona, and Venus
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Phobos, moon and universe for solar system, nebula or science with mock up space on black background. Galaxy, mars and innovation with research, milky way or astrology for exploration and discovery
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft spies Titan's south polar vortex from below the moon in this image. Imaging scientists are monitoring the vortex to study its seasonal development.
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Some parts of Dione's surface are covered by linear features, called chasmata, which provide dramatic contrast to the round impact craters that typically cover moons. This image was captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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This color image of the Moon was taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft at 9:35 a.m. PST Dec. 9, 1990, at a range of about 350,000 miles. The concentric, circular Orientale basin, is near the center; the nearside is to the right, the far side to the left.
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This view of the two moons of Mars comes from a set of images taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity as the larger moon, Phobos, passed in front of the smaller one, Deimos, from Curiosity's perspective, on Aug. 1, 2013.
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Saturn's moon Dione hangs in front of Saturn's rings in this view taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during the inbound leg of its last close flyby of the icy moon.
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Moon phases, illustration
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A huge impact created Odysseus Crater, which covers a large part of Saturn's moon Tethys in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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Dione steps in front of Tethys for a few minutes in an occultation, or mutual event. These events occur frequently for the Cassini spacecraft when it is orbiting close to the ringplane
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Pitted Hyperion
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This is one frame from a movie made of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, from a position exactly between the sun and Ceres' surface.
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North Polar Region of Enceladus Seen by Cassini Probe
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This Voyager 2 image of Miranda was taken Jan. 23, 1986, as the spacecraft neared Uranus. Miranda is the innermost of the five Uranian satellites known from Earth-based observations.
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In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent home the first close-up pictures of Pluto and its moons. Using actual New Horizons data and digital elevation models of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, mission scientists created flyover movies that offer spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system -- from a vantage point even closer than a ride on New Horizons itself. The flight over Charon begins high over the hemisphere New Horizons saw on its closest approach, then descends over the deep, wide canyon of Serenity Chasma. The view moves north, passing over Dorothy Gale crater and the dark polar hood of Mordor Macula. The flight then turns back south, covering the northern terrain of Oz Terra before ending over the relatively flat equatorial plains of Vulcan Planum and the moated mountains of Clarke Montes. (Note that all feature names are informal.) The topographic relief is exaggerated by a f
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The surface of Saturn's moon Dione is rendered in crisp detail against a hazy, ghostly Titan. A portion of the wispy terrain of Dione's trailing hemisphere can be seen on the right in this captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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This anaglyph shows the topography of Vesta's eastern hemisphere; equatorial troughs are visible around asteroid Vesta's equator and north of these troughs there are a number of highly degraded, old, large craters. You need 3-D glasses to view this image.
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The Cassini spacecraft takes in the crater-strewn surface near Dione's south pole in this natural color view. Long fractures slice across the surface here, as on other parts of the moon
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Voyager 2 Color Image of Enceladus, Almost Full Disk
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft peers through Titan's thick clouds to spy on the region dubbed 'Senkyo' by scientists. The dark features include vast fields of dunes, composed of solid hydrocarbon particles precipitated out of Titan's atmosphere.
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This map-projected view of Ceres was created from images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft during its initial approach to the dwarf planet, prior to being captured into orbit in March 2015.
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Along Endurance Crater's Inner Wall (Polar)
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This set of global, color mosaics of Saturn's moon Mimas was produced from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its first ten years exploring the Saturn system.
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What a Difference a Week Can Make
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Moon
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On January 14, 2008, NASA's MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to see the side of Mercury shown in this image -- the historic first look at the previously unseen side.
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AS13-62-8923 (11-17 April 1970) --- This oblique view of the lunar farside was photographed from the Apollo 13 spacecraft as it passed around the moon on its hazardous journey home. The large conspicuous mare area is Mare Moscoviense which is located at 146 degrees east longitude and 25 degrees north latitude. The large crater at the horizon is International Astronomical Union Crater No. 221. This view is looking northeast from the spacecraft.
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Full Global Mercury Mosaic
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The northern and southern hemispheres of Dione are seen in these polar stereographic maps, mosaicked from images from NASA's Cassini mission. Each map is centered on one of the poles and surface coverage extends to the equator.
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The northern and southern hemispheres of Enceladus are seen in these polar stereographic maps, mosaicked from the best-available NASA Cassini clear-filter images.
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Saturn's atmosphere produces beautiful and sometimes perplexing features. Is the bright feature below center a rare crossing of a feature from a zone to a belt, or is it an illusion created by different cloud layers at different levels
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Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, NASA's Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.
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Tethys Polar Maps - February 2010
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Saturn's moon Enceladus, covered in snow and ice, resembles a perfectly packed snowball in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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After Fire
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This is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope color image of dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. The contrast has been enhanced to reveal surface details.
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Bright scars on a darker surface testify to a long history of impacts on Jupiter's moon Callisto in this image of Callisto from NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
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Crisscrossing Streaks
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Titan's south polar vortex seems to float above the moon's south pole in this Cassini spacecraft view. The vortex, which is a mass of gas swirling around the south pole high in the moon's atmosphere, can be seen in the lower right of this view.
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Artist's Conception of Rings of Rhea
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Stormy Spot
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This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft was obtained about two days before its first close pass by the outer edges of Saturn's main rings during its penultimate mission phase.
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The high northern latitudes on Enceladus show little detail from Cassini's distant vantage point, nearly 50 degrees above the moon's equator
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This image mosaic from NASA's Dawn mission shows a slice of the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. This mosaic, which covers one quarter of Vesta's surface, shows the pronounced difference between the northern and southern hemispheres.