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
NASA's STS-32 crew took this view of the moon setting over the Earth's limb. Near the center is a semi-vortex in the clouds - a storm system in the early stages of formation. The moon's image is distorted due to refraction through the Earth's atmosphere.
Surveyor 1, the first of the Surveyor missions to make a successful soft landing, proved the validity of the spacecraft's design and landing technique. In addition to transmitting more than 11,000 pictures, Surveyor sent information on the bearing strength of the lunar soil, the radar reflectivity and temperature. This image of Surveyor 1's shadow shows it against the lunar surface in the late lunar afternoon, with the horizon at the upper right. Surveyor 1 was launched on May 30, 1966, and landed on June 2, 1966. NASA/JPL
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell operates a camera on the moon in 1971. NASA filed a lawsuit in South Florida federal court contending that Mitchell recently tried to sell the camera at an auction. NASA says there's no record that the device was ever transferred to Mitchell and NASA wants it back.
Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, Apollo 14 lunar module pilot, stands by the deployed US flag on the lunar surface during the early moments of the 1971 mission's first spacewalk. He was photographed by astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., mission commander. While astronauts Shepard and Mitchell descended in the Lunar Module 'Antares' to explore the Fra Mauro region of the moon, astronaut Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Module 'Kitty Hawk' in lunar orbit. NASA
Earth's single natural satellite, the Moon, is slightly larger than one quarter the size of the Earth. The Moon doesn't produce its own optical light, but shines by reflected light of the Sun.
Ron Wayman of Tampa, Fla., captured this crisp picture of Mars emerging from behind the Moon with an 8-inch telescope and a digital camera. Mars was briefly occulted - hidden from view - by Earth's Moon early on July 17, 2003.
This image shows the locations of many spacecraft that have landed on the Moon. Green triangles are Apollo missions, yellow are NASA Surveyor missions and red are Russian Luna spacecraft.
The smooth dark areas on the Moon's surface are called maria (Latin for seas). These volcanic plains are made up of a rock type known as basalt, similar in composition to the rocks found in Hawaii. They cover 17% of the surface area of the Moon. The maria contain physical features such as pits and channels, but lack large volcanos.
The above is a mosaic of about 750 Clementine images of the north pole of the Moon, from 800N to the pole (center). The nearside of the Moon is the bottom half of this mosaic, and the top half is the farside. In contrast to the south pole, the north pole shows very little area in permanent shadow. This suggests that any cold traps in this region of the Moon are very restricted and little ice could be stable in this part of the Moon. Clementine Science Group/Lunar and Planetary Institute/NASA
This view of the back side of the Moon was captured by the Apollo 16 mission crew. The sixth manned lunar landing mission, the Apollo 16, carried three astronauts: Mission Commander John W. Young, Command Module pilot Thomas K. Mattingly II, and Lunar Module pilot Charles M. Duke in 1972.
This transit of the Moon across the Sun on Feb. 25, 2007 could not be seen from Earth. This sight was visible only from the STEREO-B spacecraft in its orbit about the Sun, trailing behind the Earth.
During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon. Separate images of the Earth and Moon were combined to generate this view. The Galileo spacecraft took the images in 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97.
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon vlsible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon's northern hemisphere.
The International Space Station was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the Moon as it moved between Earth and the sun during a solar eclipse on March 29, 2006. This astronaut image captures the umbral shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus and the Mediterranean Sea.
Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts -- Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders - held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth."
Neil Armstrong took this photo of Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin walking on the Moon during the first-ever Moon landing in 1969.
This artist's concept shows a celestial body about the size of the Moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence that a high-speed collision of this sort occurred a few thousand years ago around a young star, called HD 172555, still in the early stages of planet formation. The star is about 100 light-years from Earth.
This 1963 model depicts an early Apollo lunar lander concept, called a "bug," landing on the moon. Engineers designed several possible vehicle shapes for both manned and unmanned landers. In 1961, Bruce Lundin, former director of NASA's Lewis Research Center (now Glenn), chaired the "Lundin Committee," a NASA study group that assessed a variety of ways to accomplish a lunar landing mission.
One of the first steps taken on the Moon, this is an image of Buzz Aldrin's bootprint from the Apollo 11 mission. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
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Russia is beginning a new series of missions to the moon – likely an effort to overcome a slew of space setbacks in recent years by setting its sights on more fail-proof endeavors.
Nearly 40 years after abandoning its lunar exploration program, Russia says it's preparing to shoot for the moon again.
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