The Week's Coolest Space Images
Seeing Titan With Infrared Eyes (Header Image)
These six infrared images of Saturn's moon Titan represent some of the clearest, most seamless-looking global views of the icy moon's surface produced so far. The views were created using 13 years of data acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on board NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
Gemini X Time Lapse
This time exposure photograph is of the Gemini X spacecraft, which launched from Launch Complex 19 in Cape Canaveral on July 18, 1966 with astronauts John Young and Michael Collins on board.
A Unique View Of Mars Express
In this unique image, one spacecraft orbiting Mars records the presence of another. The narrow blur against a black backdrop is in fact ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. It is the first-ever successful image of any spacecraft orbiting Mars taken by another spacecraft in a Martian orbit.
The Eagle Nebula
The Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16, contains the young star cluster NGC 6611. It also the site of the spectacular star-forming region known as the Pillars of Creation, which is located in the southern portion of the Eagle Nebula.
'Spiders' From Mars
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, acquired May 13, 2018 during winter at the South Pole of Mars, shows a carbon dioxide ice cap covering the region and as the sun returns in the spring, "spiders" begin to emerge from the landscape.
The Blooming Of The Ocean
Regardless of the amount of winter ice cover, the waters off of the Alaskan coast usually come alive each spring with blooms of phytoplankton. These blooms can form striking patterns of blue and green seawater, such as those visible in this image of the Chukchi Sea acquired on June 18, 2018, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8.
Mars, The Moon And The Station
This image was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the International Space Station on 30 June 2018 when the Moon and Mars were at its closest so far during his six-month Horizons mission.