Images of the outter Solar System

Original Description: A multitude of magnificent, swirling clouds in Jupiter's dynamic North North Temperate Belt is captured in this image from NASA's Juno spacecraft. Appearing in the scene are several bright-white "pop-up" clouds as well as an anticyclonic storm, known as a white oval.

• Mission: Juno
• Image Credit: Enhanced Image by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA)/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS (Image Source)

Original Description: This stunning image of Jupiter's stormy northern hemisphere was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet. Some bright-white clouds can be seen popping up to high altitudes on the right side of Jupiter's disk. (read more)

• Mission: Juno
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill (Image Source)

Original Description: The scene shows the stunning diversity of Europa's surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.

• Mission: Galileo
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute (Image Source)

Original Description: An active volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io was captured in this image taken on February 22, 2000 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. (read more)

• Mission: Galileo Orbiter
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (Image Source)

The icy saturn moon dione in front of saturns ring system as seen from the side. The image was taken during the Cassiny Huygens Mission on October the 11th 2005. In the upper right part of the image features the ring shadows on the cloudy surface of Saturn.

• Mission: Cassini Huygens
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Original Image Description: This large mosaic of 21 narrow-angle camera images have been arranged to provide a full-disk view of the anti-Saturn hemisphere on Enceladus. This mosaic is a false-color view that includes images taken at wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the infrared portion of the spectrum.

• Mission: Cassini Huygens
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute (Image Source)

The crater Herschel is the dominating feature on the surface of the icy saturn moon mimas. This image shows the crater as seen by the Cassini spacecraft during a flyby.

• Mission: Cassini Huygens
• Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA

The sunglint, also called a specular reflection, is the bright area near the 11 o'clock position at upper left. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea.

• Mission: Cassini Huygens
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho

Original Caption Released with Image: This Voyager 2 high resolution color image, taken 2 hours before closest approach, provides obvious evidence of vertical relief in Neptune's bright cloud streaks. These clouds were observed at a latitude of 29 degrees north near Neptune's east terminator.

• Mission: Voyager
• Spacecraft: Voyager 2
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL (Original Image)

Original caption: Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color global view. The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers). (read more)

• Mission: New Horizons
• Spacecraft: New Horizons
• Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI (Original Image, high-res)

Featured as APOD on 18-09-2015; Original Description: This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon of a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when New Horizons looked back toward Pluto, 15 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14.

• Mission: New Horizons
• Spacecraft: New Horizons
• Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Univ./APL/Southwest Research Inst.

Original Description: Is there an ocean below Sputnik Planum on Pluto? The unusually smooth 1000-km wide golden expanse, visible in the featured image from New Horizons, appears segmented into convection cells. But how was this region created? One hypothesis now holds the answer to be a great impact that stirred up an underground ocean of salt water roughly 100-kilometers thick. (read more); also featured as APOD on 2016-11-22;

• Mission: New Horizons
• Spacecraft: New Horizons
• Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Univ./APL/Southwest Research Inst.

Original Caption Released with Image: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon – and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history. (read more)

• Mission: New Horizons
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL (original Image Link)

A stunning image of the protoplanetary disc of HL Tauri. The gaps indicate the presence of protoplanets sweeping clean their orbit. This is the first ever direct picture of substructures likely formed by protoplanets in another solar system.

• Mission: Atacama Large Millimeter Array
• Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NSF

Original Description: In this new Hubble Space Telescope view, the nebula appears in a new light, as seen in infrared wavelengths. The nebula, shadowy in optical light, appears transparent and ethereal when seen in the infrared, represented here with visible shades. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that are easily seen in infrared light.

• Mission: Hubble Space Telescope
• Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) (Image Source)

Image of Supernova 1994D in Galaxy NGC 4526 (bright Spot left corner). A stunning image of Supernova taken by the hubble space telescope. It shows how for a short amount of time the supernova is emitting more light than the entire galaxy.

• Mission: Hubble Space Telescope
• Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

NGC 4258 is a spiral galaxy well known to astronomers for having two so-called anomalous arms that glow in X-ray, optical, and radio light. Rather than being aligned with the plane of the galaxy, they intersect with it. This composite image of NGC 4258 shown the galaxy in X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio waves from the VLA (purple), optical data from Hubble (yellow and blue) and infrared with Spitzer (red).

• Mission: Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-Rays observatory, Very Large Array (Radiotelescope)
• Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA/STScI & R.Gendler; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA (Image Source)