Images from NASA and ESA spacecraft near Mercury, Earth, the Moon, Mars, Saturn and a few in-transit
to further destinations. Collected here are recent images gathered from around our solar system, at scales
ranging from mere centimeters to millions of kilometers.
On Sept. 8, 2010, a C3-class solar flare erupts from the Sun. Just as a sunspot was turning awayfrom Earth
on Sept. 8, the active region erupted, producing a solar flare and a fantastic prominence. The eruption also
hurled a bright coronal mass ejection into space. (NASA/SDO)
Features on the surface of Mercury, including craters Kipling (lower left) and Steichen (upper right).
Image taken on September 29, 2009 by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
it was 183 million kilometers away. North is toward the bottom of the image. (NASA/Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Expedition as the International Space Station passes over central Asia on Sept. 4th, 2010. (NASA)
team created this mosaic of images snapped on 12 June 2010 during a calibration sequence.
(NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
amidst numerous smaller urban areas in this dramatic photograph taken by a member of the
ISS Expedition 23 crew on April 28, 2010. (NASA/JSC)
on May 29, 2010. (NASA/JSC)
on August 12, 2010. The Perseid meteor shower is sparked every August when the Earth passes
through a stream of space debris left by comet Swift-Tuttle. Picture taken using a long exposure.
(REUTERS/Kieran Doherty)
the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this
true-color image of an iceberg that had broken off the glacier tongue. (NASA Earth Observatory)
, 2010. “The beauty of Italy, on a clear summer night, stretching out into the Mediterranean Sea. You
can see many of the beautiful islands lit up and adorning the coastline including Capri, Sicily, and Malta.
The city of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius stand out along the coast.” (NASA/Douglas H. Wheelock)
Douglas H. Wheelock aboard the International Space Station. (NASA/Douglas H. Wheelock)
A pit in the Moon – this high Sun view of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater on Earth’s Moon reveals
boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. Image is approximately 400 meters wide, taken on
April 24th, 2010. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
Image taken on July 17th, 2010. (NASA/GSFC/Arizina State University)
NASA’s LROC spacecraft reveals a natural bridge on the Moon. From the LROC website: “How did this
natural bridge form? The most likely answer is dual collapse into a lava tube.” Image taken in November
of 2009. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
of Mars’ moon Phobos on 7 March 2010. (ESA)
(HiRISE) on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at 2:11pm local Mars time on July 9th, 2010.
(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Windblown features are visible on this shield volcano structure in Mars’ Tharsis Region seen by NASA’s
HiRISE camera on July 31st, 2010. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity looks back at its tracks in the Martian soil on Sol 2321
(August 4th, 2010) (NASA/JPL)
closer view of its tracks on June 23rd, 2010. (NASA/JPL)
examine the material closer on January 7th, 2010. (NASA/JPL)
surface of Mars on February 17th, 2010. (NASA/JPL)
This photo provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 10, 2010 shows the asteroid “Lutetia”
shot by the comet chaser “Rosetta”. The European Space Agency has taken the closest look yet at asteroid
Lutetia in an extraordinary quest some 280 million miles in outer space between Mars and Jupiter.
The comet-chaser Rosetta transmitted its first pictures from the largest asteroid ever visited by a satellite
Saturday night July 10, 2010 after it flew by Lutetia as close as 1,900 miles (3,200 kilometers), ESA said
in Darmstadt, Germany. (AP Photo/ESA)
In these photographs released by NASA September 9, 2010, a fleeting bright dot on each of these images
of Jupiter marks a small comet or asteroid burning up in the atmosphere. The image on the left was taken
on June 3, 2010, by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, in Broken Hill, Australia, when he obtained
the image with a 37-centimeter (14.5-inch) telescope. Wesley’s image is a color composite. The fireball
appears on the right side of Wesley’s image. The color image on the right was taken by amateur
astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa, of Kumamoto, Japan, on August 20, 2010. The fireball appears in the
upper right of Tachikawa’s image. (REUTERS/NASA)
(NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
Seen by by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on June 2, 2010. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
75,000 kilometers (47,000 miles) away on July 5th, 2010. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
with a wide shadow cast by the rings which are seen nearly edge-on, seen by Cassini on may
8th, 2010. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
April 10, 2010. The view was acquired by Cassini at a distance of approximately 1.8 million km
from Dione and 2.7 million km (1.7 million mi) from Titan. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
before the moon, April 26th, 2010. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
(NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
August 13th, 2010. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
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