MESSENGER views Mercury's south pole and terminator from an altitude of 10,240 km (6363 miles). The surface temperature in the upper part of this image, bathed in light from the nearby Sun, is about 700 Kelvin (430 °C, 800 °F). In the lower, unlit portion, temperatures can quickly drop drastically to 110 Kelvin (-163 °C, -261 °F) some parts of the poles never receive sunlight and remain at 90 Kelvin (-183 °C. -297 °F).
A view of The second planet from the Sun, Venus, as seen on June 5, 2007 as NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew past. Thick clouds of sulfuric acid obscures the planet's surface completely, reflecting some sunlight back into space, while trapping heat below in a 460 °C (860 °F) greenhouse.
Above the Earth's moon now, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO) captured this oblique view of Aitken crater, including the central peak and northern walls. The Scene is about 30 km wide.
A patchwork of material makes up the fresh ejecta blanket of an unnamed 1 km diameter crater on the Moon, seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, on April 21, 2011.
A recent view of the Apollo 14 landing site -- acquired January 25, 2011 by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Tracks made 40 years ago by NASA astronauts on February 5 and 6, 1971, are still visible, undisturbed. The descent stage of lunar module Antares in center, image width is 1,500 meters.
This detailed, photo-like view of Earth is based largely on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. This image focuses on the massive Pacific Ocean, part of the important water ecosystem that covers 75% of our home planet. This image was featured as part of a story on water at NASA's Earth Observatory.
The Earth's moon, distorted heavily by layers of atmosphere, sets above the Indian Ocean, as seen by astronauts aboard the International Space Station on April 17, 2011.
A panoramic view across central South America at sunset, looking towards the northeast, as seen by an astronaut aboard the ISS on April 12, 2011.
On October 28, 2010, astronauts aboard the ISS gazed down on the Earth at night and captured this scene, with Brussels, Paris, and Milan brightly lit.
Snowfall across 30 U.S. States last February shows snow from the Great Plains to New England under the cold and clear skies that followed. The storms made for a nice snowy satellite-view panorama in this February 3, 2011 GOES-13 satellite image captured at (11:45 a.m. EST).
The first quarter Moon and the Aurora Australis appear above the Earth, as seen by astronauts aboard the ISS on September 14, 2010.
South Georgia is an arc-shaped island that lies some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) east of the southern tip of South America. Along South Georgia's east coast, Neumayer Glacier snakes toward the ocean. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the glacier on January 4, 2009.
NASA space physicist James Spann took this picture at Poker Flats, Alaska, where he was attending a scientific conference to study auroras on March 1, 2011.
An astronaut's view of a sunrise, viewed through the cupola window of the ISS on November 26th, 2010.
On to Mars next - this image shows a remarkable double crater with a shared rim and North-South trending ejecta deposits. These two craters must have formed simultaneously. Image acquired in February, 2011 by NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), a camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
A land formation covered by drifting sand on Mars' surface, in a crater in Sinus Sabaeus Region. Image acquired on April 1, 2011 by NASA's HiRISE camera.
HiRISE peers down on Mars Rover Opportunity as it sits perched on the edge of Santa Maria crater (visible as dark dot at top left of crater). Opportunity's tracks can be seen faintly across the center, leading to the right. This image was taken on March 1, 2011, after Opportunity had spent several days studying the area.
Mars Rover Opportunity looks across the surface of the planet, a small crater nearby, in this mosaic of images acquired in May of 2011.
An area of Mars' Holden Crater, one of four candidate landing sites for Curiosity, acquired on January 4, 2011. NASA is still deciding on the final landing area for the next rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, named Curiosity, scheduled to launch on November 25, 2011 and land on Mars on August 6, 2012.
This March 31, 2011 image of Mars rover Spirit shows it in it's final resting spot. Sunlight glints off its surface, as it sits stuck in loose sand, trapped for two years now. Over a year ago, its radio stopped functioning, and just last Wednesday, may 25th, NASA engineers sent their final signal to Spirit, hoping for a response, and receiving none.
A close-up view of comet Hartley 2, taken as NASA's EPOXI mission approached the comet on November 4, 2010.
This image shows the first, unprocessed image obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft of it's target, the giant asteroid Vesta. It was obtained by Dawn's framing camera on May 3, 2011, from a distance of about 1.2 million kilometers (750,000 miles). Vesta is inside the white glow at the center of the image. The giant asteroid reflects so much sunlight that its size is dramatically exaggerated at this exposure. Vesta is 330 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. But, in Dawn's early approach images, Vesta only appears approximately five pixels across in size. This and other images help Dawn fine tune navigation during its approach to Vesta, with arrival expected on July 16, 2011.
An image of Jupiter, seen by NASA's Hubble telescope on July 23, 2009, after a comet or asteroid recenetly plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated.
Outward to Saturn now, this image taken by NASA's Cassini Orbiter on April 25, 2011, shows several of Saturn's moons aligned along its rings, with Saturn's dark side taking up the left third of the image.
A close view of Saturn's small moon Helene during a Cassini flyby on March 3, 2010. Saturn's atmosphere makes up the background of this composition. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Helene (33 kilometers, 21 miles across).
Small water ice particles fly from fissures in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus in this image taken during the Aug. 13, 2010, flyby of the moon by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring to cast long shadows on the ring in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft two weeks before the planet's August 2009 equinox.
Cassini looks toward the dark side of Saturn's largest moon and captures the halo-like ring produced by sunlight scattering through the periphery of Titan's atmosphere.
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus appears in this Cassini image, Saturn and its rings in the background.
Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus pass high above the rings and surface of the planet below, in this image taken by Cassini on May 21, 2011.
The shadows of Saturn's rings cast onto the massive planet appear as a thin band at the equator in this image taken as the planet approached its August 2009 equinox.