Ring World Highlights

Three views of the Martian moon Phobos as viewed in visible light by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Saturn's enchanting rings display crisply defined edges and strong contrast on their unilluminated side. Atlas (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across) sits on the far side of the rings above center, b...

ORIGINAL CAPTION: At Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Station, workers are installing three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) on the Cassini spacecraft.

Rhea's crater-saturated surface shows a large bright blotch, which was likely created when a geologically recent impact sprayed bright, fresh ice ejecta over the moon's surface. The rim of the gre...

                  Rings and More Rings July 16, 2004   Full-Res: PIA05417   This dramatic view of Saturn's rings drap...

This view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows an area in mid-southern latitudes on Ceres. The crater named Juling (12 miles, 20 kilometers wide) is seen at lower right. Bright material is visible alo...

Tethys sports an enormous impact basin, Odysseus. The impact basin is 450-kilometers (280-miles) wide and contains a central complex of mountains. See The Great Basin for a close-up view of Odyss...

A view of Earth rising above the lunar horizon photographed from the Apollo 10 Lunar Module in May 1969.

Colorful Threads and Shadows September 16, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06114 Saturn's faintly banded atmosphere is delicately colored and i...

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a very shadowed region in Vesta's northern hemisphere. Roughly the upper one third of asteroid Vesta's northern hemisphere is currently in shadow.

Cassini briefly turned its gaze from Saturn and its rings and moons to marvel at the Carina Nebula, a brilliant region 8,000 light years from our solar system and more than 200 light years across. ...

Dark Side of Dione July 19, 2004 Full-Res: PIA05418 The icy, cratered surface of Saturn's moon Dione shows more than just its sunl...

Eight years ago today, ESA’s Huygens bounced, slid and wobbled its way to rest on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, the first time a probe had touched down on an alien world in the outer Solar Sy...

Shredding a Cloud November 5, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06514 This close-up of Saturn's atmosphere shows turbulent activity on the ragged edg...

The small moon Janus is illuminated by light from both the sun and Saturn. This view looks toward the south pole of Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) which lies on the terminator just be...

This image was taken during Cassini's third close approach to Titan on Feb. 15, 2005. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths...

The cratered and cracked disk of Saturn's moon Dione looms ahead in this mosaic of images taken by Cassini on Oct. 11, 2005, as it neared its close encounter with the icy moon. In this false-color...

                  Streaming F Ring July 2, 2004   Full-Res: PIA06351   This image taken by the narrow angle camera on...

Vertical ring structures created by the moon Daphnis cast dark shadows on Saturn's A ring in this image taken as the planet approached its August 2009 equinox. Daphnis (8 kilometers, or 5 miles ac...

Saturn's irregularly shaped moon Hyperion is completely covered with large pits from which much of its material has been blasted by impacts, never to return. The moon's surface gravity is so low th...

Saturn's richly dynamic atmosphere rewards viewers with unique and fascinating structures with every new observation. Here, the Cassini spacecraft uses the near-infrared filters on its wide-angle ...

Family Portrait September 13, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06475 A stately Saturn poses for a portrait with five of its moons in this Cassini sp...

The center of Ezinu Crater on Ceres is seen in this view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The crater features a network of canyon-like features. Ezinu measures about 72 miles (116 kilometers) in diamet...

The Apollo 11 landing site as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

This colorized image from the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer onboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows temperature variations at Tarpeia crater, near the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta.