New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains.
via NASA
Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).
via NASA
In a historic fly-by this week, the New Horizons spacecraft snapped the most detailed pictures yet of Pluto. Experts and amateur astronomers alike are intrigued by the images, which show a dark region around Pluto's equator—dubbed "the whale"—and a heart-shaped region, thought to be covered by a frost of frozen methane, carbon monoxide, or nitrogen.
Star-gazers like to say that the ice-capped south pole of Mars resembles a swirling cosmic cappuccino. This picture was taken by ESA’s Mars Express, which has been exploring the Martian surface and atmosphere since 2003.
ESA
A storm on Saturn's north pole resembles a giant crimson rose in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image is one of the first sunlit views of the pole captured by Cassini. The eye measures some 1,250 miles across.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
A single crescent moon is a familiar sight for Earthlings—but near Saturn, you can see multiple crescent moons. Here, a spacecraft captures images of Titan, Mimas and Rhea.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured an awe-inspiring image of Saturn's rings—actually a composite of 36 images taken over the course of 2.5 hours. On the planet's dark side, a golden glow illuminates the night in reflected light from the sunlit rings.
ESA
Jupiter’s moon Europa is scarred by deep red gashes that resemble human veins. The bright color comes from minerals running beneath the moon's icy crust, and scientists speculate they could be salt deposits in an underground ocean.
ESA
One of Saturn's outer moons, Hyperion, is captured by the Cassini spacecraft in a 2005 fly-by. The moon's sponge-like appearance is due to its porous, cratered surface, which is made up mostly of water, ice, and small amounts of rock.
ESA/NASA
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured the picture of the M104 galaxy, dubbed the "Sombrero." The galaxy's stars are concentrated in its dense galactic disc, while the halo contains a soup of stars and cosmic rays.
ESA
NGC 6302 is a Buttery Nebula, with a hot dying star at its center (hidden from our view by a cloud of dust). The Hubble Space Telescope captured the grandeur of this nebula, which lies some 4,000 light years away in the constellation of Scorpius.
NASA/ESA/Hubble
The Andromeda galaxy, glittering like a great cosmic eye. This image was taken by the ESA Herschel space observatory.
ESA
This cosmic pillar of dust and gas, dubbed the Cone Nebula, lives in an active star-forming region and measures some seven light years across. Such pillars are common in regions of star birth, and astronomers think they may incubate developing stars. (Image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.)
ESA
A spectacular new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the dynamic Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant in the constellation Taurus.
ESA
This crusty image looks like it could have come from an exotic moon or a Martian dune—but in fact, it's an image of the Sahara desert in central Algeria, taken by the Sentinel-2A satellite in its first scan of Earth on June 27, 2015.
ESA
