Voyager 1 took one last snapshot of our solar system before heading home in its final moments: this family portrait with Earth as the star.
NASA’s InSight Mars Lander is reaching the end of its journey and leaving behind an amazing archive of amazing pictures. Below are a selection of our favorites; these images serve as testaments to human ingenuity, daring, and perseverance.
Moon
The Moon is our closest celestial neighbor and an intriguing place to explore. Its vast network of craters and mountains have been formed over billions of years by space debris being scattered by solar wind; yet its surface offers surprises; there’s so much variety even on its dark side!
Spacecraft have taken numerous pictures of Earth since Voyager 1 first flew past it on Mars Global Surveyor and Cassini Galileo MESSENGER took their final journeys, providing gravity assist flybys. Cameras on these missions (including Hubble Space Telescope ) captured stunning natural and artistic views of our world that remain unforgettable today.
Earth
Every object that leaves our atmosphere and travels into outer space, be it satellite orbiting Earth or spacecraft sent towards the Moon, is classified as a spacecraft. From robots to humans manned spacecraft can take us to new frontiers of exploration.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft captured one of the most memorable images from space when it took a black-and-white photograph of Earth and its moon on Nov. 21, 2022, marking its sixth day of flight – this mission serves as a prelude to one in 2025 that will bring humans back to the moon.
Tarantula Nebula star-forming region appears differently when seen from deep space, where light appears redder and dimmer. Webb’s near-infrared camera captured this incredible scene(opens in new tab). It took 340 light-years for this image to reach us from deep space!
Jupiter
NASA’s Juno spacecraft circles Jupiter with its JunoCam camera capturing photos of Jupiter and its 79 moons. Citizen scientists then merge and process these images, providing us with breathtaking portraits of this huge gas planet.
Images show how atmospheric thick cloud bands transform into incredible swirling patterns, featuring dark belts zigzagging through light zones with wind speeds hundreds of times faster than a Category 5 hurricane on Earth.
Juno made another amazing visit to one of Jupiter’s intriguing ocean worlds on Thursday and captured high-resolution images of Europa, one of its intriguing moons, with astounding resolution. You can check them out along with amazing views from earlier perijoves (click to enlarge!) below.
Solar Orbiter
Solar Orbiter from UK captured this breathtaking 83-megapixel image of our star during its recent close flyby. EUI, its highest resolution instrument, used wavelengths of 17 nanometers from extreme ultraviolet spectrum for this photo. This captured image shows off our planet’s fiery corona which can reach temperatures as high as one million degrees Celsius while its surface remains relatively cool at only 5,000 Celsius.
EUI also captured an incredible video of the Sun’s South Pole four days after reaching its closest point to Earth – known as perihelion. Lighter regions represent magnetic loops arising from within its interior while darker spots represent areas where certain loops have opened, allowing gases from within it to escape into space as solar wind. Furthermore, scientists have named one patch of spikes on the video ‘The Hedgehog’!
Comet C/2022 E3
Comet C/2022 E3, more commonly known by its initials ZTF, was first detected last year by the wide-field camera at Zwicky Transient Facility and is due to reach naked-eye brightness on 1 February; therefore making it visible from areas with less light pollution.
Astronomers were delighted to discover a green glow emanating from the nucleus of a comet due to a build-up of diatomic carbon and cyanogen released by sunlight onto its surface.
Michael Hartmann captured this beautiful image using our Tele Vue-76 APO refractor and QHY 268M camera to reveal comet C/2022 E3 in predawn skies from Palo Alto, northern California. The long blue ion tail, short dust tail, and short antitail were clearly seen here.