#PPOD: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)
#PPOD: Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. T Also captured were unusual cloud ripples above the pileus cloud. The formation of a rare pileus cloud capping a common cumulus cloud is an indication that the lower cloud is expanding upward and might well develop into a storm. Credit: Jiaqi Sun
#PPOD: What is creating these dark streaks on Mars? No one is sure. Candidates include dust avalanches, evaporating dry ice sleds, and liquid water flows. What is clear is that the streaks occur through light surface dust and expose a deeper dark layer. Similar streaks have been photographed on Mars for years and are one of the few surface features that change their appearance seasonally. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/HiRISE camera Team/University of Arizona
#PPOD: A possible place to look for life beyond Earth, the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa was imaged by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on December 16, 1997. This version is made from monochrome raw image data with color synthesized to approximate natural colors. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/J. Major
#PPOD: This 3D image of Ryugu was put together by Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and guitarist for the British rock band Queen. The top and bottom are inverted compared to how we usually show the asteroid, and this photo has Ryugu’s south pole at the image top. The Otohime Saxum, which is a large boulder, is clearly visible.
Credit: JAXA, Univ of Tokyo, Kochi Univ, Rikkyo Univ, Nagoya Univ, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji Univ, Univ of Aizu, AIST; Claudia Manzoni, Brian May
#PPOD: A massive dust storm looms near the mighty Olympus Mons on Mars. Taken from China's Tianwen-1 orbiter using the MoRIC Camera on 6 January 2022. North is to the right. Credit: CNSA/CLEP/PEC/MoRIC/ @andrealuck
#PPOD: Venus's surface as seen by Venera-14, a Soviet space mission launched in 1981. The lander touched down on 5 March 1982 and survived about an hour on the surface, nearly double the planned life. With a temperature of 465 °C and a pressure 94 times as strong as that of Earth, our "twin" planet is not at all hospitable to humans or machines. Credit: Roscosmos; Image processing: Ted Stryk
#PPOD: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander lifts off Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. As part of NASA’s CLPS initiative and Artemis campaign, Intuitive Machines’ first lunar mission will carry science and commercial payloads to the Moon to study plume-surface interactions, space weather/lunar surface interactions, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies, communication/navigation node for future autonomous navigation technologies. Credit: NASA / Kim Shiflett
#PPOD: The Moon's shadow, or umbra, is pictured covering portions of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick and the American state of Maine in this photograph from the International Space Station as it soared into the solar eclipse from 420 kilometers above the surface of Earth. The diameter of the shadow is 160 km. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: Absolutely gorgeous new (Feb 29th) view taken by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars, looking back down the slope of Mt. Sharp in the center of Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk/S Atkinson
#PPOD: The highest peak in Japan, Mount Fuji, is one of the nation’s most striking symbols. Astronauts need oblique views and low sun angles to get a strong sense of three dimensions when they take photographs from the International Space Station. The low afternoon sun emphasizes the conical shape of the famous volcano. Other details enhance the sense of topography in the image, including numerous gullies in the flanks, as well as shadows cast in the summit- and side crater (Hoei). Credit: NASA
#PPOD: Images from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover’s pioneering encounter with sand dunes on Mars constrain the wind speeds required to move sand in the thin Martian atmosphere. This encounter took place almost seven years ago and gave scientists important data about the ability of the Martian atmosphere to move particles. It did not hurt either that this image was just spectacular! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
#PPOD: St. Patrick’s Aurora Illuminates the Night Sky
This majestic image of the dazzling green lights of the aurora borealis was captured on March 17, 2015, around 5:30 a.m. EDT in Donnelly Creek, Alaska.
#PPOD: This is actually a mud volcano in eastern Russia, named Pugachevskiy. It is located on the Sakhalin island. The mud volcanoes are formations generated by the release of gases and liquids. The mud is pushed to the surface as the pressure builds up beneath the Earth, creating an unusual pattern. We could not find a precise measurement of its size, but judging from other photographs, it is likely around 100 m in diameter. Credit: Mikhail Mikhailov/Caters News Agency
#PPOD: This near-infrared view of Saturn and the rings was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in July 2017. Saturn is also showing ‘ringshine’, light reflected off the rings and onto the night side of the planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
#PPOD: Earth hangs above a large boulder examined by Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmidt in December 1972. A recent analysis of freshly opened samples from Apollo 17 found that the Moon is at least 4.46 billion years old, or roughly 40 million years older than revealed by other samples. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: Captured during perijove 26, NASA's Juno spacecraft spotted some stunning clouds and storms swirling on the surface of Jupiter. Taken by #JunoCam. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
#PPOD: Technicians offload NASA’s largest planetary mission spacecraft, Europa Clipper, from a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft at the Launch and Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 23. NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy later this year. The launch period opens on Oct. 10. Credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
Some mind-boggling details of a Martian impact crater taken by NASA's HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This image has everything: layers, boulders, dunes, and maybe some polygonal terrain, too. The blue filter is used here to learn about morphologies, textures, and composition.
The Juno mission's JunoCam has taken some lovely images in seven years at the gas giant, including this one of Jupiter's "eye" captured early on during Perijove 09. The key to these amazing pictures, however, is in the citizen scientists who process them. Learn more: https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing
#PPOD: Ganges Chasma is one of several deep troughs that make up the Valles Marineris system on Mars. This image shows the geologic contact between the walls of Ganges Chasma and the adjacent plains. The upper slopes of the walls of Ganges have layering that appears dark, rough, and blocky, consistent with lava flows that are thought to make up the plains around Valles Marineris. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
#PPOD: NASA’s JWST new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) in near-infrared light is giving astronomers hints at the dynamical processes occurring within the supernova remnant. Tiny clumps represented in bright pink and orange make up the supernova’s inner shell, and are comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent)
#PPOD: Some of the incredible solar activity was captured last month by spacecraft near the Sun, including these plasma tornadoes. These walls of plasma are higher than the Earth is in diameter. And, of course, all this solar activity has provided us with stunning aurorae. With solar maximum approaching, chances are high that we'll see more incredible views like this one! Credit: NASA
#PPOD: This scene is a mosaic of two Right Mastcam-Z camera images taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on 27 May 2024 at a local time of 3:15 pm. The color approximates natural human vision. Most boulders are largely basaltic, with evidence of being rounded by wind. We can't wait to learn the composition of the lighter-toned one in the middle of the scene, though, as it appears to be something different. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Paul Byrne