Probe Landing on Titan

This image of Ontario Lacus, the largest lake on the southern hemisphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, was obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 12, 2010. North is up in this image. Objects app...

This image from NASA's Dawn mission shows three colorized views of the Oppia region in the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta.

This is a raw, or unprocessed, image taken by the Cassini spacecraft during its close flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007.

From about three times the distance from Earth to the moon, NASA's Dawn spacecraft spies its final destination -- the dwarf planet Ceres.

This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 7, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers).

An extended-exposure image shows the Cassini spacecraft streaking through the early morning sky over the Cape Canaveral Air Station, with the help of the Titan IVB/Centaur launch vehicle. The succe...

Cassini spies the wrinkled, fractured and remarkably crater-poor terrain of Enceladus. Scientists are working to understand what causes the moon's surprising geologic activity (see Fountains of Enc...

Saturn's two largest moons meet in the sky in a rare embrace. Smog-enshrouded Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) glows to the left of airless Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles acros...

Kitty Joyner, electrical engineer, at Langley in 1952.

Two small portions of Saturn's F ring shine brilliantly in scattered sunlight as Rhea floats in the distance beyond. Rhea is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across. This view looks toward the unillu...

This high-resolution infrared image was taken during the Cassini spacecraft's closest approach to Titan on Oct. 26, 2004. These images were obtained by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectro...

This radar image of Titan's well-known dunes is distinctive because it may show an age relationship between different classes of features on the surface of this frigid world. Taken by Cassini's ...

This image combines two separate views of the giant asteroid Vesta obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The data reveal a world of many varied, well-separated layers and ingredients.

Soaring above the alien, icy wastelands of Saturn's moon Iapetus, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured a series of high-resolution images of the transition region from dark to bright terrain at south...

Dark material has coated the low-elevation terrain and the interiors of craters in the southern portions of the quadrant on Iapetus that faces away from Saturn. This is part of the boundary region ...

This image shows the bright light of a solar flare on the left side of the Sun and an eruption of solar material shooting through the Sun's atmosphere. 

NASA's Dawn instrumentation poster, part of the Dawn Mission Art series.

Our robotic explorer Cassini regards the shadow-draped face of Saturn. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 14 degrees above the ringplane. In this viewing geometr...

Enceladus in the Distance November 3, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06512 Cassini spied the moon Enceladus in the distance beyond Saturn's sou...

Saturn's northern hemisphere is presently a serene blue, more befitting of Uranus or Neptune, as seen in this natural color image from Cassini. Light rays here travel a much longer path through th...

Change is detected on Saturn’s moon Titan, in these three composite images from data taken during flybys in October 2005, January 2006 and March 2006 by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. (For balanced co...

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows heavily cratered terrain in asteroid Vesta's equatorial region. The craters have a wide range of sizes and many different forms, which include fresh, de...

Saturn's Rings, Cold and Colder September 2, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06425 The varying temperatures of Saturn's rings are depicted here in ...

When Cassini gazes down at Saturn's rings with the Sun directly behind the spacecraft, an unusual phenomenon called the "opposition effect" can be seen. The effect is visible here as a bright regio...

Voyager 2 obtained this parting shot of Triton, Neptune's largest satellite, shortly after closest approach to the moon and passage through its shadow on the morning of Aug. 25, 1989.