In the Shadow of Saturn
In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. ...
An Orion Deep Field
Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky's most recognizable constellations, the glowing Orion Nebula and the dark Horsehead Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. They both appear in this stunning composite digital image assembled ...
Full Moon Crossing
On October 6th, a nearly full perigee Moon shone in Earth's night sky. The bright moonlight, accurate planning, and proper equipment resulted in this amazing composite featuring sharp silhouettes of the International Space Station (ISS) as it ...
The Hubble SWEEPS Field
This crowded star field towards the center of our Milky Way Galaxy turns out to be a great place to search for planets beyond our solar system. In fact, repeatedly imaging about 180,000 stars in the field over a one week period, the Hubble Space ...
Saturn's Infrared Glow
Known for its bright ring system and many moons, gas giant Saturn looks strange and unfamiliar in this false-color view from the Cassini spacecraft. In fact, in this Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) mosaic the famous rings are ...
Markarian's Chain of Galaxies
Across the heart of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies lies a striking string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain. The chain, pictured above, is highlighted on the lower right with two large but featureless lenticular galaxies, M84 and M86, and ...
Reflection Nebulas in Orion
In the vast Orion Molecular Cloud complex, several bright blue nebulas are particularly apparent. Pictured above are two of the most prominent reflection nebulas - dust clouds lit by the reflecting light of bright embedded stars. The more ...
Mars Rover at Victoria Crater Imaged...
An unusual spot has been found on Mars that scientists believe is not natural in origin. The spot appears mobile and is now hypothesized to be a robot created by an intelligent species alien to Mars. In fact, the spot appears to be NASA's ...
CMBR Dipole: Speeding Through the...
Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But ...
COBE All-Sky Map
This historic all-sky map is based on the first two years of data from NASA's COsmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, launched in November of 1989. The map shows minute temperature variations (red is hotter) imprinted on the Cosmic Microwave ...
