Dione, moon of Saturn, from Voyager 2 on August 22, 1981.

Dione, moon of Saturn, from Voyager 1 on November 12, 1980. The wispy trailing hemisphere can be seen on the left-hand side.

Europa, moon of Jupiter, from Galileo on its 17th orbit of Jupiter in September 1998.

Saturn from the Hubble Space Telescope in June of 2018. The color data used here extends from near UV to near IR, which is why the intensity of the features on the Saturnian disk seems more pronounced.

Actuellement deux comètes présentes dans notre système solaire semblent se tirer la bourre. Leur nom de code : C/2025 K1 ATLAS (à gauche) et C/2025 R2 SWAN (à droite). En réalité leurs trajectoires respectives sont très différentes. Reunion Island - 20 septembre 2025.

Saturn, rings, and moons on August 30-31, 1979, from Pioneer 11 as it approached the planet. This was produced using images over a two and half hour period that spanned from just about midnight on August 30th into the wee hours of August 31.

A more distant shot of Io, moon of Jupiter, showing Loki Patera, the dark feature in the upper center, from Juno as it receded from Io on December 30th, 2023.

Io, moon of Jupiter, from Juno on December 30, 2023.

The moon from the Galileo spacecraft during its flyby in December, 1992. The quality of the images it returned really shows what could have been had its antenna opened (it could send back images at a high rate with its omnidirectional antenna near earth, but not from Jupiter).

Another film image of the moon from Zond 8 on October 24, 1970.

The earth and moon from Zond 8 on October 24, 1970. This image was taken on film that was returned to earth.

Europa from the Galileo spacecraft in June of 1997. The hemispheric differences in color are quite apparent when one compares the left and right sides of this image.

When I see all these new Mars images, I can't help but wonder what such a camera could show us at other worlds. We have great coverage of earth and Mars, plentiful UV coverage of Venus (though no active orbiter now). What would we see at Triton, moon of Neptune?

A few selected images of Mars processed from a new batch of data from the EXI camera aboard the Hope probe. The dates and times of the images and some details are in the ALT text.

Two images of Enceladus, moon of Saturn, on September 14, 2017, from the Cassini spacecraft, days before the mission was intentionally crashed into the planet.

As a result of the uncertainty around, this is my last planned moment in an airport for a professional trip. Things can change of course, but it would take a lot.

Perrine Regio on Ganymede from the Galileo Spacecraft on December 28, 2000. A crater chain, likely from a comet that was broken up by Jupiter's gravity, can be seen on the right just below the center of the image.

Today in 1979, Pioneer 11 was speeding away from Saturn, giving humanity a perspective from beyond the planet that it had never have. However, Saturn was also close to solar conjunction, which led to it being increasingly hard to transmit data. The right hand version shows how bad the dropouts were.

Today in 1979, Pioneer 11 passed Saturn, viewing the night side of the rings, giving humanity its first encounter with the planet and its moons. It would be followed by Voyager 1 in 1980 and Voyager 2 in 1981.

Boulders on the surface of Mars from the Mars Pathfinder lander in 1997.

The boulder-strewn surface of Utopia Planitia, Mars, from the Viking 2 lander. Ejecta from the crater Mei can be seen on the horizon.

A teaser for the Pluto map I'm working on, originally scheduled to be released on the 10th anniversary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. These are minimaps which supplement the main map and contain less information - the main map is much larger and contains all the official and unofficial names.

Distant dunes and boulders and dunes from the Viking 1 lander on August 18, 1976.

The "spokes" in the rings of Saturn from Voyager 1 on November 13, 1980.

Yesterday, August 25th, was the 36th anniversary of the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter, humanity's only visit to the Neptune system. It turns out Hubble was looking on that day, watching Neptune and Triton from afar.

OTD 1989, Voyager 2 was speeding off into space after passing by Neptune. It couldn't take motion compensated pictures during departure because it didn't have enough memory to store the commands. That's why there aren't spectacular closeups of Triton on the way out (the closeup here is underexposed)

Today in 1989, Voyager 2 made humanity's first and only flyby of Neptune and its rings and moons. The dataset it returned continues to tease us about how much more there is to explore here.

USSR, 1967. Making the first globes to cover the whole on the Moon.

Today in 1989, Voyager 2 made humanity's first and only flyby of Neptune and its rings and moons. The dataset it returned continues to tease us about how much more there is to explore here.

Rhea, moon of Saturn, from Voyager 1 on November 13, 1980. This was by far the best global view the Voyagers got of a Saturnian moon, showing the battered surface in exquisite detail.

Hyperion, a large irregular moon of Saturn, from Voyager 2 on August 24th, 1981.

Haemus Mons is a mountain located near Io’s south pole and, in this image, lies near the terminator in this image from Voyager 1 on March 7, 1979. Its base spans about 200 by 100 kilometers.

Callisto, moon of Jupiter, from Voyager 1 on March 6, 1979.

OTD 2002, asteroid 2002 NY40, 800 meters across, passed within 540,000 km of earth, having been discovered days earlier. The Maui Space Surveillance System was able to use adaptive optics to take resolved pictures of it. This is, to my knowledge, the only time this has happened with an NEO flyby.

Saturn from Pioneer 11 as it approached on September 1, 1979, looking at the backlit side of the rings. While this wasn't an ideal angle for humanity's first Saturn flyby, Saturn was not a part of the mission at launch, and this was the only trajectory available using a gravity assist at Jupiter.

Ganymede, moon of Jupiter, from the approaching Voyager 2 in July, 1979. ESA's JUICE mission is on its way to orbit this world, which is larger than the planet Mercury.

Mars on December 14, 1990, from the Hubble Space Telescope. The South Polar Cap is at its approximate minimum seasonal size and can barely be seen at the bottom of the images. The north polar cap is shrouded in the atmospheric North Polar Hood.

Mars on December 12, 2003, from the Hubble Space Telescope. At the time, the planet was quite distant from earth.

A crescent Mars from the Hope orbiter on May 30, 2023.

I have a complaint about Avi Loeb's latest work and I want to speak to management. medium.com/@steve.desch...

Miranda, moon of Uranus. This is one of those images that is fun to just explore. And since we are looking down on the south pole, there is a whole hemisphere of Miranda we have yet to see.

Science, which purports to be a prestigious journal, discounts Larry's accomplishments simply because he's a cat.

Today in 1959, Explorer 6 was launched, returning the first crude imagery of Earth (or any world) transmitted from space. Sounding rockets had returned imagery, but it had to be physically returned. It is amazing to think that there are millions who can remember a time before this was possible.

Jupiter and Io from Voyager 1 on March 4, 1979. I have posted this here before but in cropped form.

Something I will never understand (it was true on Twitter too): I will post what I think is a really good and interesting image, and I just get a dozen or so people respond. Then I post something that I think is so-so but interesting enough that it still should still be posted, and it blows up.

Io on June 27, 1997 from the Galileo spacecraft, showing the relatively poorly seen hemisphere of Io (as in it was faced away from Galileo and the Voyagers during their close flybys, and much of it wasn't seen by Juno either, although it did cover some of it).

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775. I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

Phobos, moon of mars from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera's Super Resolution Channel on August 22, 2004. The crater Stickney, from an impact that nearly shattered Phobos, can be seen toward the top.

The Tolstoj basin on Mercury from Mariner 10 on March 29, 1974.