#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: Taken in 2016, this stunning composite photo shows the Milky Way stretching above the Isar River in Germany as well as the stunning landscape beneath the river's surface. Photographer Johannes Holzer used a star tracker to capture the night sky and a Sony A7r in a water-case to get the underwater scenery. Both exposures took 300 seconds. We think you'll agree that the result is beautiful. Credit: Johannes Holzer
#PPOD: This image was taken by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft's MINERVA-II-b rover ("OWL") as it bounced across the surface of the asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 23 September 2018. Each bounce lasted about 15 minutes, in which time the tiny rover covered about 15 meters. Credit: JAXA
#PPOD: On March 1, 2023, NASA’s Juno mission completed its 49th close flyby of Jupiter. As the spacecraft flew low over the giant planet’s cloud tops, its JunoCam instrument captured this look at bands of high-altitude haze forming above cyclones in an area known as Jet N7. Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed a raw image from the JunoCam instrument, enhancing the contrast and sharpness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Björn Jónsson
#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
The Earth is seen beyond the limb of the Moon, taken from the Command Module of Apollo 17 on December 16, 1972. (From original NASA image # AS17-152-23274).
#PPOD: This photo is an approximate true color image of comet 67P taken by the Rosetta spacecraft's OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera on March 17, 2015. This image is a four-frame mosaic, with each color frame imaged through VIS_BLUE, VIS_GREEN, and VIS_RED filters. At the time this image was taken, Rosetta was located roughly 82 km from the comet's center. Credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team (MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA) / Justin Cowart
#PPOD: This misshapen orb is Uranus' moon Miranda, which is about 235 km in radius, and was imaged here by Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to ever visit the Uranian system. From this shot, it is pretty obvious that whoever put it together ran out of parts! Incredible little world... Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill
#PPOD: Global color mosaic of Triton, taken in 1989 by Voyager 2 during its flyby of the Neptune system. Triton is the largest of Neptune's 13 moons. It is unusual because it is the only large moon in our solar system that orbits in the opposite direction of its planet's rotation―a retrograde orbit. Scientists think Triton is a Kuiper Belt Object captured by Neptune's gravity millions of years ago. It shares many similarities with Pluto. Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
#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
#PPOD: To end our week, we look back at this beautiful picture of Titan and Saturn taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on May 22, 2015. Processed using calibrated near-infrared (MT2, CB2) filtered images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
#PPOD: A collapsed lava tube in Hephaestus Fossae on Mars was imaged by HiRISE, the high-resolution camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Note: Full high-resolution frames are usually about 1 km across; however, this image was cropped. This skylight is still probably several hundred meters across.
#PPOD: Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks graces the evening sky above the summits of Kežmarský štít (8,389 ft/2,557 m), at right, and Lomnický štít (8,635 ft/2,632 m), at left in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. At the summit of Lomnický štít is a small domed building. This structure is the Skalnaté pleso Observatory, one of the highest astronomical observatories in central Europe. Credit: Petr Horálek - Institute of Physics in Opava (https://www.petrhoralek.com/)
#PPOD: This spectacular view of Gosses Bluff (known as Tnorala to the Aboriginal people), Northern Territory, Australia, was photographed from the International Space Station. About 142 million years ago in the early Cretaceous period a meteorite probably one kilometre in diameter struck in the heart of Australia, blasting a 22-kilometre-wide hole out of the earth's crust. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: How does a comet tail change? It depends on the comet. The ion tail of Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks has been changing markedly, as detailed in the featured image sequenced over nine days from March 6 to 14 (top to bottom). Reasons for tail changes include the rate of ejection of material from the comet's nucleus, the strength and complexity of the passing solar wind, and the rotation rate of the comet. Credit: Shengyu Li & Shaining via APOD
#PPOD: The final resting place of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, imaged on 25 February 2024 by NASA's Perseverance rover's SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager. The helicopter flew for its 72nd and final time on 18 January 2024. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/Paul Byrne
#PPOD: The JunoCam instrument on NASA’s Juno captured this view of Jupiter’s moon Io — with the first-ever image of its south polar region — during the spacecraft’s 60th flyby of Jupiter on April 9, 2024, revealing mountains and lava lakes. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Gerald Eichstädt/Thomas Thomopoulos
#PPOD: This detailed image came from Cassini's close encounter with Mimas, one of Saturn's moons. Mimas is less than 400 kilometers in diameter, creating ripples in Saturn's rings with its gravity. This disruption separates the A and B rings with the Cassini Division. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/ @kevinmgill
#PPOD: Korolev is an ice-filled impact crater in the Mare Boreum quadrangle of Mars, located at 73° north latitude and 165° east longitude. The crater is 81.4 kilometers in diameter and contains about 2,200 cubic kilometers of water ice, comparable in volume to Great Bear Lake in northern Canada. Taken by the HRSC onboard ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck
#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: As carbon dioxide frost sublimates with the warming Martian spring, a pattern emerges of dark brown sand dunes interspersed with the remaining bright frost. Image taken by the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona
#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 is how NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft saw Neptune, the other blue planet, in true color on 17 August 1989, based on a re-analysis of the original data by Patrick G J Irwin et al 2024. Credit: NASA/Voyager 2/PDS/OPUS/Ardenau4