Exploring Celestial Bodies

Images of celestial objects such as moons and dwarf planets showcasing surface features, craters, and textures from NASA's observational missions.

The Arabian Connection

The Arabian Connection

To the Relief of Iapetus

In addition to being evidence of past impacts, craters can serve another valuable scientific purpose. Counting the number of craters in an area, can estimate the age of the terrain. NASA's Cassini orbiter looks toward the trailing hemisphere of Mimas.

This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 7, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers).

Dione Below

The Saturnian Moon Dione

The Cassini spacecraft examines the rough dark-light dichotomy of the terrain on Saturn's moon Iapetus.

This is the first image obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft after successfully entering orbit around Vesta.

The Cassini spacecraft views terrain on the bright, trailing side of Iapetus in natural color

Shadows darken parts of some of Janus' large craters as Cassini takes a close look during its flyby of this Saturnian moon on March 27, 2012.

$NASA's Cassini spacecraft looks toward the cratered plains of the trailing hemisphere of Rhea. Some of the moon's fractures, appearing like wispy bright lines, can be seen on the left of the image.$

This frame from an animation shows the north pole of dwarf planet Ceres as seen by the Dawn spacecraft on April 10, 2015. Dawn was at a distance of 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers) when its framing camera took these images.

Crater and Canyon

On Jan. 24, 1986, NASA's Voyager 2 returned the highest-resolution picture of Titania, Uranus' largest satellite. Abundant impact craters of many sizes pockmark the ancient surface; most prominent features are fault valleys that stretch across Titania.

NASA's Cassini imaging scientists processed this view of Saturn's moon Hyperion, taken during a close flyby on May 31, 2015. This flyby marks the mission's final close approach to Saturn's largest irregularly shaped moon.

Dark Belt of Tethys

This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on April 29, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers).

Helene of Troy

Saturn's moon Mimas. The large Herschel Crater dominates Mimas. Cassini.

Relatively dark regions below bright crater walls and streaks on some of the walls are seen in this mosaic of Saturn's moon Mimas, created from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its closest flyby of the moon.

This full-frame view of asteroid Vesta was obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft with its framing camera on July, 24 2011. This image was taken through the camera's clear filter. The image has a resolution of about 485 meters per pixel.

Surface features on Rhea, mostly impact craters in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, are thrown into sharp relief thanks to long shadows.

Craters in Relief

An Unusual Perspective

Saturn's Moon Rhea

NASA's Dawn spacecraft took this image of dwarf planet Ceres from about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) away on Feb. 25, 2015. Ceres appears half in shadow because of the current position of the spacecraft relative to the dwarf planet and the sun.

The South Saddle

As NASA's MESSENGER neared Mercury on January 14, 2008, the spacecraft's Wide Angle Camera on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) took this image of the planet's full crescent.

Cosmic Rays Near Mercury

Astrolabe Rupes and More

Canyons' End

A Mercury Christmas Carol

Rough, Icy Mimas

This dramatic close-up of Tethys shows the large crater Penelope lying near center, overprinted by many smaller, younger impact sites

Rhea's horizon is slightly irregular and battered by craters, so thoughts inevitably turn towards the forces that shape these icy worlds. This image is from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Farside! And All the Way Around

Rembrandt Stands Out

Dione's Canyonlands

Rhea: Polar View

These two views of Ceres were acquired by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Feb. 12, 2015, from a distance of about 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) as the dwarf planet rotated. The images have been magnified from their original size.

Up Close to Mimas

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid.

View of Pluto's moon Charon, 2015

Battered Moon

NASA's Cassini imaging scientists processed this view of Saturn's moon Dione, taken during a close flyby on June 16, 2015. This was Cassini's fourth targeted flyby of Dione.

This image of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft approximates how the dwarf planet's colors would appear to the eye.

This five-frame sequence of New Horizons images captures the giant plume from Io's Tvashtar volcano. These were snapped by the probe's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft flew past Jupiter earlier this year.

The Cassini spacecraft provides this dramatic portrait of Janus against the cloud-streaked backdrop of Saturn

Torn-up Terrain

Thin crescent moon with many details of lunar surface

Like most moons in the solar system, Tethys is covered by impact craters. Some craters bear witness to incredibly violent events, such as the crater Odysseus (seen here at the right of this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft).

This image is from Cassini's final observation of Saturn's icy moon Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometers across) on May 2, 2017. The spacecraft was at the time high above the plane of Saturn's rings, looking down at Rhea's northern hemisphere. The northern rim of the giant Tirawa impact basin can be seen along the limb at left. (For a high-resolution view of Rhea, see PIA07763; Tirawa is the large basin at the one o'clock position in that view.) The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Rhea. Image scale is 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

Not-So-Dark Side of Tethys

Deimos!

The Other Side of Iapetus

NASA's Voyager 2 was 530,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) from Neptune's largest satellite, Triton, when this photo was taken, Aug. 24, 1989. This is the first photo of Triton to reveal surface topography.

Moon in outer space.

This image from NASA's Dawn mission shows a shadowy view of the northern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta, using pictures obtained during Dawn's last look back. Around the time of Dawn's departure from Vesta in the late summer of 2012, dawn was beginning to creep over the high northern latitudes, which were dark when Dawn arrived in the summer of 2011.

Dione reveals its past via contrasts in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The features visible here are a mixture of tectonics (bright, linear features and impact cratering) the round features, which are spread across the entire surface.

The Odysseus Crater sprawls across the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere of the moon Tethys.

$NASA's Cassini spacecraft pictures a crescent of Saturn's moon Rhea. Although craters dominate this particular view, the trailing hemisphere of Rhea also features wispy fractures.$

Ganymede Global

Location of the NEAR Shoemaker Landing Site

Southern terrain on Saturn's moon Rhea is dimly illuminated by Saturnshine in this view of the dark side of the moon captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

This view of the Moon's north pole is a mosaic assembled from 18 images taken by NASA's Galileo's imaging system through a green filter as the spacecraft flew by on December 7, 1992.

This image from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image when Dione was closer to its camera, making the moon appear much bigger than her larger sister moon, Rhea.

Target: Tethys

This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft April 24 to 26, 2015, from a distance of 8,500 miles (13,500 kilometers). You need 3-D glasses to view this image.

Rhea's Memory

Ida and Gaspra

Chaotically tumbling and seriously eroded by impacts, Hyperion is one of Saturn's more unusual satellites. Scientists believe the moon to be quite porous, with a great deal of its volume being empty space

This orthographic projection shows dwarf planet Ceres as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The projection is centered on Occator Crater, home to the brightest area on Ceres. Occator is centered at 20 degrees north latitude, 239 degrees east longitude. This image was made from views Dawn took during its low-altitude mapping orbit, at about 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface. The image resolution is about 460 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

High-Resolution View from Mercury Flyby 1

This picture of asteroid 951 Gaspra is a mosaic of two images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft from a range of 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles), some 10 minutes before closest approach on October 29, 1991.

Sunlit cliffs tower above Yalode Crater on Ceres in this shadowy perspective view. At 152 miles, Yalode is one of Ceres' largest craters. A fissure called Nar Sulcus is seen just right of center. NASA's Dawn spacecraft took this image on Oct. 19, 2016.

Dione Has Her Faults (False Color)

Occulting Enceladus

NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped this image of Saturn's moon Helene while completing the mission's second-closest encounter of the moon on June 18, 2011.

Pummeled Hyperion

NASA's Dawn spacecraft took this image on June 13, 2016, showing the limb of Ceres from above an equatorial region east of Kirnis Crater.

Reshaping the Craters

The Cassini spacecraft looks down under at the tortured south polar region of Enceladus, crossed by its tiger

This image, from NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft which launched in 1974, is of the southern hemisphere of Mercury.

This oblique view featuring International Astronomical Union (IAU) Crater 302 on the Moon surface was photographed by the Apollo 10 astronauts in May of 1969. Note the terraced walls of the crater and central cone.

The Stardust-NExT mission took this image of comet Tempel 1 on February 14, 2011. The comet was first visited by NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005.

This Cassini spacecraft view shows how the bright and dark regions on Iapetus fit together like the seams of a baseball. Some of the material that covers the moon's dark, leading side spills over into regions on the brighter trailing side

Ithaca Chasma rips across Tethys from north to south near the center of this view. The moon's western limb is flattened, indicating the rim of the giant impact basin Odysseus

Crescent Enceladus

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures a crescent of crater-covered surface on the moon Rhea. Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Rhea. North on Rhea is up.

Hyperion: Parting Glance

$This image of the Uranian moon, Miranda, was taken Jan 24, 1986 by NASA's Voyager 2. This image reveals a bewildering variety of fractures, grooves and craters, as well as features of different albedos (reflectancea).$

Saturn's Moon Hyperion

You Are Terminated!

This anaglyph of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft April 24 to 26, 2015, from a distance of 8,500 miles (13,500 kilometers).

Saturn's Satellite Rhea

This 3D image of the asteroid Vesta was taken on July 9, 2011 by the framing camera instrument aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft. You need 3D glasses to view this image.

AS17-152-23272 (7-19 Dec. 1972) --- The crescent Earth rises above the lunar horizon in this photograph taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in lunar orbit during National Aeronautics and Space Administration's

of 2