#PPOD: Pwyll crater is one of the few visible craters on Jupiter's moon Europa. This view was captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on Dec. 9, 1996, and processed by K. McGill and Jason Major. The central crater is about 25 km across. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/K. McGill and J. Major
#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: This unusual view of the horizon of Mars was captured by NASA’s Odyssey orbiter using its THEMIS camera, in an operation that took engineers three months to plan. It’s taken from about 250 miles above the Martian surface – about the same altitude at which the International Space Station orbits Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
#PPOD: Aristarchus Crater lies in the northwest part of the Moon's near side. It is considered the brightest of the large formations on the lunar surface, with an albedo nearly double that of most lunar features. The feature is bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye and displays unusually bright features when viewed through a large telescope. The 40-km-wide crater is deeper than the Grand Canyon at 2.7 km deep! Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
#PPOD: Venus' nightside was photographed in the infrared and processed in false color for studying the atmosphere, as shown in this image captured by JAXA's AKATSUKI spacecraft back in September 2016. On the nightside, the spacecraft observed infrared light coming from the lower atmosphere through clouds. The shadow of the clouds can also be seen in the image. Here, bright and dark are reversed to show clouds in whitish color. Credit: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS
#PPOD: Taken by NASA's Curiosity rover with its Mastcam on sol 3386, 13 February 2022, as the rover was on its way up to Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Blackcraig Butte is just one of several sedimentary structures imaged by the rover on its climb toward the Greenheugh Pediment. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS / @andrealuck
#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: The sun's first rays begin illuminating Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the central United States. At far left, the city lights of Chicago, Illinois, are outlined by Lake Michigan. At far right, the city lights of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area shine through the clouds. Credit: NASA / Jasmin Moghbeli
#PPOD: Pluto's approximately 50-km wide moon Nix was imaged by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. The red area is likely a region of tholin deposition and/or formation. Tholins are abiotic complex organic solids possibly produced when ultraviolet light from the faraway Sun breaks down molecules of methane that escape Pluto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/J. Major
#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: An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this nadir (downward-looking) photograph of Parinacota and Pomerape, twin volcanoes in the Andes Mountains. The volcanoes compose the Nevados de Payachata volcanic group and form part of the border between Chile and Bolivia. Illuminated by early evening sunlight, the snow- and glacier-capped peaks cast long, distinct shadows. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: On June 25, NASA’s #JWST turned to famed ringed world #Saturn for its first near-infrared observations of the planet. The initial imagery from JWST's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) is already fascinating researchers. Saturn itself appears extremely dark at this infrared wavelength observed by the telescope, as methane gas absorbs almost all of the sunlight falling on the atmosphere. However, the icy rings stay relatively bright. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Andrea Luck
#PPOD: This image shows the first flash of sunlight reflected off a hydrocarbon lake on Saturn's moon Titan. The glint off a mirror-like surface is known as a specular reflection. This kind of glint was detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 8, 2009. It confirmed the presence of liquid in the moon's northern hemisphere. Credit: NASA/JPL/University Of Arizona/DLR
#PPOD: In this false-color image of Pluto, taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its July 14, 2015 flyby, different colors represent different compositions of surface ices, revealing a surprisingly active body. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
#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 view of Jupiter's moon Callisto, captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on 25 June 1997, shows the 350-km-long Gomul Catena crater chain—the result of a comet that broke apart just before impact into what appears to be at least 26-27 separate major pieces! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Jason Major
#PPOD: Please enjoy this amazing shot of the International Space Station passing in front of the Sun. Several solar prominences are also visible. If you look closely, you can also see the Dragon capsule docked to the ISS (inset, upper right). Credit & Copyright: Mehmet Ergün
#PPOD: NASA’s JWST has gazed at the Crab Nebula in the search for answers about the supernova remnant’s origins. Similar to the Hubble optical wavelength image released in 2005, with Webb the remnant appears comprised of a crisp, cage-like structure of fluffy red-orange filaments of gas that trace doubly ionized sulfur (sulfur III). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Tea Temim (Princeton University)
#PPOD: This oblique view of the Moon was taken from the Lunar Module during the Apollo 12 mission on 1969-11-19 and shows the 107 km diameter Copernicus crater near the horizon at the center of the frame. Reinhold crater, 42 km across, is in the foreground. The Carpathian mountain range is visible on the horizon at the lower left. This area is just to the north of the Apollo 12 landing site. The view is looking northeast. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: If you look carefully, you can see a small, bright object just left of center in this image. Can you spot it? That's NASA's Curiosity rover, photographed from Mars orbit. This image was taken by the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on 18 April 2021. The image has a resolution of 25 cm per pixel, and north is up. At the time the image was taken, MRO was 269 km above the rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona/Paul Byrne
#PPOD: This 2006 Gemini Observatory image shows Jupiter’s two giant “red” spots brushing past one another in the planet’s southern hemisphere. In the near-infrared, the red spots appear white rather than the reddish hue seen at visible wavelengths and both are massive storm systems. The larger one is the Great Red Spot and the smaller is Oval BA, which no longer exists. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF
#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: This composite photograph is an eclipse sequence taken during last month's annular solar eclipse as the Moon was overtaking the rising Sun in the sky over Factory Butte in Utah. The rays flaring out from the Sun are an illusory result of camera aperture diffraction. The Moon is artificially brightened to enhance its outline -- which helps the viewer better visualize the Moon's changing position during this ring-of-fire eclipse. Credit: MaryBeth Kiczenski via APOD
#PPOD: Saturn's moon Mimas is seen orbitally setting beyond the limb of its larger sibling Dione from the point of view of NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 12, 2011. Mimas was about 515,000 km away from Dione when this image was captured. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/J.Major