In Pictures: Exploring Mars with Curiosity
In Pictures: Meteors
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Dancing with the Stars
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Black Holes
In Pictures: Space Photos of the Day: Asteroids
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Visions of the future
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Massive Storms
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Gas giants
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Heavenly Rings
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Female Astronauts
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: The Moon
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: A Blue Planet
This shaded relief image of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula shows a subtle, but unmistakable, indication of the Chicxulub impact crater. Most scientists now agree that this impact was the cause of the Cretatious-Tertiary Extinction, the event 65 million years ago that marked the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs as well as the majority of life then on Earth. In this enhanced image the topography has been exaggerated to highlight a trough, the darker green line at the upper left corner. This trough is only about 10 to 15 feet deep and is so subtle that if you walked across it you probably would not notice it.
This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows 'Victoria crater,' an impact crater at Meridiani Planum, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately half a mile in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material.
This NASA image received on November 20, 2008 shows a computer graphic with three craters in the eastern Hellas region of Mars containing concealed glaciers detected by radar. The image shows how the surface looks today with the ice covered with a layer of Martian soil. The image was created using image data from the Context Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft combined with results from the SHARAD radar sounder on MRO and HRSC digital elevation map from the Mars Express spacecraft.
Located in a rugged, heavily timbered area of the Canadian Shield in Quebec Province, Manicouagan Reservoir is impressive in this low-oblique, west-looking photograph. The reservoir, a large annular lake, marks the site of an impact crater 60 miles wide. Formed almost 212 million years ago when a large meteorite hit Earth, the crater has been worn down by many advances and retreats of glaciers and other processes of erosion.
The impact of an asteroid or comet several hundred million years ago left scars in the landscape that are still visible in this spaceborne radar image of an area in the Sahara Desert of northern Chad. The concentric ring structure is the Aorounga impact crater, with a diameter of about 10.5 miles. The original crater was buried by sediments, which were then partially eroded to reveal the current ring-like appearance. The dark streaks are deposits of windblown sand that migrate along valleys cut by thousands of years of wind erosion.
Mars Global Surveyor was greeted with this view of 'Happy Face Crater' smiling back at its camera from its location on the east side of Argyre Planitia. This crater is officially known as Galle Crater, and it is about 130 miles across. The picture was taken by the MOC's red and blue wide angle cameras. The bluish-white tone is caused by wintertime frost.
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this color image on March 9, 2011, of 'Santa Maria' crater, showing NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity perched on the southeast rim on Mars, in this photograph released by NASA. The rover is the bluish speck at about the four o'clock position on the crater rim (with indicator arrow).
Apollo 16 launched on April 16, 1972, and landed on the moon's Descartes region on April 21. This photo shows a view of the Plum Crater and the lunar roving vehicle in the background.
Meteor Crater is one of the youngest and best-preserved impact craters on Earth. The crater formed roughly 50,000 years ago when a 30-meter-wide, meteor weighing 100,000 tons struck the Arizona desert. The resulting explosion created a half-mile-wide, nearly 700-foot-deep crater. The crater formed in layered Paleozoic age sedimentary rocks, some of which are exposed in the nearby Grand Canyon.
A layer of light-toned rock exposed inside Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars appears to mark where the surface was at the time, many millions of years ago, when an impact excavated the crater. NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove to this bright band as the science team's first destination for the rover during investigations inside the crater.
This HiRISE image covers Mars's youthful and enigmatic Ada crater and its fresh ejecta situated on the southern bounds of Meridiani Planum. Ada crater has an approximate diameter of 1.5 miles. The HiRISE sub-image shows that the crater has well-developed and sharp crater morphologic features with no discernable superimposed impact craters – a clear testament to the crater's youthfulness.
This Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera picture shows a young, fresh meteor impact crater in southeast Arabia Terra acquired in August 2003. The crater is inferred to be young because it still has a finely detailed pattern of rays associated with its ejecta. These rays formed in a dusty mantle that covers the other craters and rocky terrain at this locale.
Some of the most important high resolution imaging results of the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera experiment center on discoveries about the presence and nature of the sedimentary rock record on Mars. This old meteor impact crater in northwestern Schiaparelli Basin exhibits a spectacular view of layered, sedimentary rock. The 1.4-mile-wide crater may have once been completely filled with sediment; the material was later eroded to its present form.
This picture of Eros, the first of an asteroid taken from an orbiting spacecraft, is a mosaic of four images obtained by NEAR on February 14, 2000, immediately after the spacecraft's insertion into orbit. We are looking down over the north pole of Eros at one of the largest craters on the surface, which measures 4 miles across. Inside the crater walls are subtle variations in brightness that hint at some layering of the rock in which the crater formed.
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/23
In Pictures: Huge hurricanes
In Pictures: Oh to be young again, Mr. President!
In Pictures: Facing the devastation of the Oklahoma tornadoes
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/22
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/21
In Pictures: Sinkholes around the world
In Pictures: What happened to the green revolution in Iran?
In Pictures: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm
Scotland will vote in 2014 whether to split off from England and the rest of the United Kingdom. Scottish nationalists argue that Scotland would be better off alone.
Ending Britain's 306-year rule would allow Scotland to reverse generations of economic mismanagement and free its lawmakers to boost economic growth, say Scottish nationalists campaigning to split from the UK.
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