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Release of Probe
Published:
December 7, 2004
Release of Probe
ENLARGE
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This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows an area in Vesta's northern hemisphere that has been illuminated by the sun. As asteroid Vesta progresses from its winter to its spring the sunlight is ...
Light and Shadow
This mosaic of Cerealia Facula in Occator Crater on Ceres is based on images obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Intimate details about the relationships between bright and dark materials across th...
Mosaic of Cerealia Facula in Occator Crater
Mercury's Degas crater in enhanced color, as seen by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in 2012.
Degas and Friends
Tupo Crater on Ceres is seen in this view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. This crater, located in the southern hemisphere of Ceres, was named for a Polynesian god of turmeric. Dawn captured the scene ...
Dawn LAMO Image 19
The Encke Gap, the broad, vertical dark band running down the center of this image, is maintained by the small moon Pan (not pictured). Pan also shepherds three ringlets, all of which appear here a...
Not-Quite-Empty Gap
+ View Full Res This image was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on April 15, 2012. The camera was pointing toward Tethys at approximately 115,714 miles (186,224 kilometers) away. This image has...
Tethys Portrait (Raw Image)
This view of a rock called "Block Island," the largest meteorite yet found on Mars, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on Opportunity.
'Block Island' Meteorite
These are the first raw images returned by the ESA Huygens probe DISR camera after the probe descended through the atmosphere of Titan. (Right) This image shows the surface of Titan with ice block...
First Images from Titan
Nathan Strange and Troy Goodson of the Cassini Navigation Team track the release of the probe. The confirmation signal arrived at 7.24 p.m. PST on Dec. 24, 2004.
Cassini Navigation Team members track Huygens release
NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained these false-color images of a circular feature in a region known as Xanadu on Saturn's moon Titan. The images, obtained by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping s...
Circular Feature at Xanadu, Titan
The Cassini spacecraft continues to image terrain on Iapetus that is progressively eastward of the terrain it has previously seen illuminated by sunlight. The region seen here was imaged in reflec...
Brightside in View
This view looks toward Rhea's north polar region, where icy fractures slither away toward the south. Lit terrain in this view is on the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 m...
Barren Pole
This image has not been validated or calibrated. A validated/calibrated image will be archived with the NASA Planetary Data System in 2012. For more information on raw images check out our Freque...
Enceladus (Raw Image 3)
Darkness sweeps over Iapetus as the Cassini spacecraft watches the shadow of Saturn's B ring engulf the dichotomous moon. The image at left shows the unshaded moon, while at right, Iapetus sits in ...
Cloaking Iapetus
Voyager 2 was 530,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) from Neptune's largest satellite, Triton, when this photo was taken, Aug. 24, 1989.
Triton's Surface Topography
The low angle of sunlight along the slim crescent of Saturn's moon Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) highlights the many fractures and furrows on its icy surface.
Slim Crescent of Ice
Sunlight scatters through Titan's atmosphere, illuminating high hazes and bathing the entire moon in a soft glow. This high phase angle view of Titan was acquired from 21 degrees below the smoggy ...
Titan's Cocoon
The brick red, white and brown cloud bands of Jupiter are seen here from Saturn orbit. The Cassini spacecraft's powerful imaging cameras were specially designed to photograph nearby bodies (cosmica...
Hello Again, Jupiter!
This image shows rough ice in the southern part of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It was created using synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data acquired by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 6, 2011. The SAR i...
Enceladus Sparkles
In this image, Cassini sees Saturn and the rings through a haze of Sun glare on the camera lens.
Glare on the 'Window'
Atmosphere Detail in Infrared September 3, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06469 This detail shows swirls and shoals in Saturn's cloud bands near t...
Atmosphere Detail in Infrared
This 3-D image shows the topography of Vesta's densely cratered terrain obtained by the framing camera instrument aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft on August 6, 2011. You need 3D glasses to view this i...
Topography of Densely Cratered Deformed Terrain
A sequence showing the propeller-like rotation of Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69.
New Horizons MU69 Approach
These images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft show part of asteroid Vesta's equatorial region, which contains a prominent, deep impact crater (lower center of images) and large troughs (linear depressio...
Topography of Vesta's Equatorial Region I
Two sources of light reveal the dramatic surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus in this Cassini image in which geologic features give the appearance of the leathery skin of an elephant. Geologically y...
Elephant Skin Enceladus
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