On the South Side

On the Other Side

This Side of Paradise

Side Hit

On the Bright Side

An animated set of images, from the telescope known as the iTelescope.net Siding Spring Observatory, shows asteroid 2012 DA14 as the streak moving from top to bottom in the field of view. The animation is available in the Planetary Photojournal.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 as Seen from Siding Spring, Australia

Far-Side Halo Outburst

The Sun blew out a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) from just around the edge of the Sun (Oct. 14, 2014). The particle cloud expanded around all the Sun in a rough circle, hence the name 'halo' CME. This event was also associated with a fairly strong flare. The active region that was the source of these events is just rotating into view. Then, we can better observe its size and structure. The bright object to the right and just above the Sun is Venus now on the far side of the Sun. Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Titan Night Side

Dione Streaky Side

Spokes on Side of Saturn Rings

Smooth Side of Route 66

Exposing Iapetus Dark Side

Night Side Jovian Aurora

Dark Side of Dione

The Other Side of Iapetus

Not-So-Dark Side of Tethys

Dione and the Dark Side

The Dark Side of the Crater

Two Sides of Dunes

Night Side Ringplane

Dione Pockmarked Side

Dark Side of the Force

From the Dark Side

Seduced by the Dark Side

Adirondack Finer Side

Iapetus Dark Side

Side by Side Views of a Dark Hill

Comet Siding Spring Mars Flyby

On October 19, Comet Siding Spring will pass within 88,000 miles of Mars – just one third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon! Traveling at 33 miles per second and weighing as much as a small mountain, the comet hails from the outer fringes of our solar system, originating in a region of icy debris known as the Oort cloud. Comets from the Oort cloud are both ancient and rare. Since this is Comet Siding Spring’s first trip through the inner solar system, scientists are excited to learn more about its composition and the effects of its gas and dust on the Mars upper atmosphere. NASA will be watching closely before, during, and after the flyby with its entire fleet of Mars orbiters and rovers, along with the Hubble Space Telescope and dozens of instruments on Earth. The encounter is certain to teach us more about Oort cloud comets, the Martian atmosphere, and the solar system’s earliest ingredients. Learn more: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG4KsatjFeI" rel="nofollow">www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG4KsatjFeI</a> Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Opportunity Hole in One Side View

Temperature Map of Io Night Side

New Images Reveal a Dark Side

Infrared Observations of Europa Trailing Side

The Cassini spacecraft views terrain on the bright, trailing side of Iapetus in natural color

On the Bright Side

Cassini has Mimas and Pandora on its side as it gazes across the ringplane at distant Tethys. The two smaller moons were on the side of the rings closer to Cassini when this image was taken.

Choosing Sides

Dactyl Dark Side Illuminated by Idashine

On January 14, 2008, NASA MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to see the side of Mercury shown in this image -- the historic first look at the previously unseen side.

A Closer Look at the Previously Unseen Side

Path to the Dark Side

The moon Iapetus, like the "force" in Star Wars, has both a light side and a dark side. Scientists think that Iapetus' (914 miles or 1471 kilometers across) dark/light asymmetry was actually created by material migrating away from the dark side. For a simulation of how scientists think the asymmetry formed, see Thermal Runaway Model . Lit terrain seen here is on the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Iapetus. North on Iapetus is up and rotated 43 degrees to the right. The image was taken in green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 4, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Iapetus. Image scale is 15 miles (24 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia18307

Jupiter Night-Side Auroras, North and South

Opposite Side of Callisto from Valhalla Impact

A View to the South…from the Other Side of Mercury

Surface Stereo Imager on Mars, Side View

Aerial of NASA Langley Reaseach Center west side

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

Aerial of NASA Langley East side spin tunnel and wind tunnel

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

Aerial view of NASA Langley Research Center west side

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

Cassini stares toward the night side of Saturn, seen here on the right, as the active icy moon Enceladus glides past

Dark Side of Saturn Moon

Sunlight scattering through the periphery of Titan atmosphere reaches NASA Cassini as the spacecraft camera is pointed at the dark side of the moon.

Light on the Dark Side

Hubble's View of Comet Siding Spring

MARCH 27, 2014: Comet Siding Spring is plunging toward the Sun along a roughly 1-million-year orbit. The comet, discovered in 2013, was within the radius of Jupiter's orbit when the Hubble Space Telescope photographed it on March 11, 2014. Hubble resolves two jets of dust coming from the solid icy nucleus. These persistent jets were first seen in Hubble pictures taken on Oct. 29, 2013. The feature should allow astronomers to measure the direction of the nucleus's pole, and hence, rotation axis. The comet will make its closest approach to our Sun on Oct. 25, 2014, at a distance of 130 million miles, well outside Earth's orbit. On its inbound leg, Comet Siding Spring will pass within 84,000 miles of Mars on Oct. 19, 2014, which is less than half the Moon's distance from Earth. The comet is not expected to become bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute) <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

The top graph consists of infrared data from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. It tells astronomers that a distant planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, always has a giant hot spot on the side that faces the star, while the other side is cold and dark.

The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet

This historical photo of the South side of Square in downtown Huntsville, Alabama was taken in 1965. (Courtesy of Huntsville/Madison County Public Library)

----History

This is a 1956 night shot of the east side of Square in downtown Huntsville, Alabama. Photo Courtesy of Huntsville Public Library

----History

Juno Images Jupiter's Dark Side

Juno's Radiation Monitoring Investigation used the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) star camera to collect this high-resolution image of the dark side of Jupiter during Perijove 11 on Feb. 7, 2018. The clouds are illuminated by moonlight from Jupiter's moon Io and the two bright spots on the right side of the image are flashes of Jovian lightning. Juno was only 41,000 miles (66,000 kilometers) from the cloud tops when this SRU image was collected. The left side of the composite image shows a 3-dimensional visualization of Jupiter's Northern hemisphere with its northern aurora included. To the right of the aurora and solar terminator line, is a box illustrating the position of the SRU field of view at the time the image was taken. Further to the right is an exploded view of the SRU image. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22965

Comet Siding Spring Seen Next to Mars

This composite NASA Hubble Space Telescope Image captures the positions of comet Siding Spring and Mars in a never-before-seen close passage of a comet by the Red Planet, which happened at 2:28 p.m. EDT October 19, 2014. The comet passed by Mars at approximately 87,000 miles (about one-third of the distance between Earth and the Moon). At that time, the comet and Mars were approximately 149 million miles from Earth. The comet image shown here is a composite of Hubble exposures taken between Oct. 18, 8:06 a.m. EDT to Oct. 19, 11:17 p.m. EDT. Hubble took a separate photograph of Mars at 10:37 p.m. EDT on Oct. 18. The Mars and comet images have been added together to create a single picture to illustrate the angular separation, or distance, between the comet and Mars at closest approach. The separation is approximately 1.5 arc minutes, or one-twentieth of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The background starfield in this composite image is synthesized from ground-based telescope data provided by the Palomar Digital Sky Survey, which has been reprocessed to approximate Hubble’s resolution. The solid icy comet nucleus is too small to be resolved in the Hubble picture. The comet’s bright coma, a diffuse cloud of dust enshrouding the nucleus, and a dusty tail, are clearly visible. This is a composite image because a single exposure of the stellar background, comet Siding Spring, and Mars would be problematic. Mars is actually 10,000 times brighter than the comet, and so could not be properly exposed to show detail in the Red Planet. The comet and Mars were also moving with respect to each other and so could not be imaged simultaneously in one exposure without one of the objects being motion blurred. Hubble had to be programmed to track on the comet and Mars separately in two different observations. The images were taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Credit: NASA, ESA, PSI, JHU/APL, STScI/AURA Credit: NASA, ESA, PSI, JHU/APL, STScI/AURA

Goodbye to the Dark Side

Stunning views like this image of Saturn's night side are only possible thanks to our robotic emissaries like Cassini. Until future missions are sent to Saturn, Cassini's image-rich legacy must suffice. Because Earth is closer to the Sun than Saturn, observers on Earth only see Saturn's day side. With spacecraft, we can capture views (and data) that are simply not possible from Earth, even with the largest telescopes. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 7 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on June 7, 2017. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 751,000 miles (1.21 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 45 miles (72 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21350

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

This 1940s photo of the South side of Square in downtown Huntsville, Alabama, looking west, shows a historical bank in the background with cars parked just South of the Courthouse (not shown in photo). (Courtesy of Huntsville/Madison County Public Library)

----History

Saturn moon Enceladus, seen beyond the outline of the planet night side, spews water ice from its south polar region. The plumes can be faintly seen at the bottom of the moon in this image from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

Activity Past Dark Side

Saturn casts a wide shadow across its rings in view from NASA Cassini spacecraft which looks toward the darkened southern hemisphere of the night side of the planet.

Night Side Rings

This image composite shows comet Tempel 1 in infrared light . The infrared picture highlights the warm, or sunlit, side of the comet, where NASA Deep Impact probe later hit.

Sunny Side of a Comet

Night Side of Titan

NASA Cassini spacecraft looks toward the dark side of Saturn largest moon as a circle of light is produced by sunlight scattering through the periphery of Titan atmosphere. A detached, high-altitude global haze layer encircles the moon.

Dark Side Ring of Light

A propeller-shaped structure created by an unseen moon appears dark in this image obtained by NASA Cassini spacecraft of the unilluminated side of Saturn rings. The propeller is marked with a red arrow in the top left.

Propeller from Unlit Side

This image of the lunar surface was taken by NASA MoonKAM system onboard the Ebb spacecraft and shows Crater Poinsot located on the northern part of the moon far side.

Far Side of Moon Imaged by MoonKAM

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

Side View of Endurance

Close-up of Dark Side of Jupiter Moon Ganymede

This image of the dark side of the Jovian moon Ganymede was obtained by the Stellar Reference Unit star camera aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Usually used to the spacecraft on course, the navigation camera was able to obtain an image of the moon's dark side (the side opposite the Sun) because it was bathed in the dim light scattered off Jupiter; the camera operates exceptionally well in low-light conditions. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24682

Port Side of Perseverance

The port side of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover can be seen in this image taken on Nov. 16, 2019, in High Bay 1 of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. At the top left, the rover's remote sensing mast can be seen in the deployed position. To the right of the mast in the center of the image is the light gray high-gain antenna. At center of the image, attached to the side of the rover, is a black cable bracket (with gold cabling running through it). Attached to the top of this black bracket — and gray in color — is the Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) microphone. The rectangular screen to the right of the cable bracket is the rover chassis HEPA filter, which is above the white box housing the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) inlet filter assembly. Gray and bright orange cables seen in the foreground of the image belong to ground support equipment. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24045

MAVEN Ultraviolet Image of Comet Siding Spring’s Hydrogen Coma

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft obtained this ultraviolet image of hydrogen surrounding comet Siding Spring on Friday, Oct. 17, two days before the comet’s closest approach to Mars. The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument imaged the comet at a distance of 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers). The image shows sunlight that has been scattered by atomic hydrogen, and is shown as blue in this false-color representation. Comets are surrounded by a huge cloud of atomic hydrogen because water (H2O) vaporizes from the icy nucleus, and solar ultraviolet light breaks it apart into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen atoms scatter solar ultraviolet light, and it was this light that was imaged by the IUVS. Two observations were combined to create this image, after removing the foreground signal that results from sunlight being scattered from hydrogen surrounding Mars. The bulk of the scattered sunlight shows a cloud that was about a half degree across on the “sky” background, comparable in size to Earth’s moon as seen from Earth. Hydrogen was detected to as far as 93,000 miles (150,000 kilometers) away from the comet’s nucleus. The distance is comparable to the distance of the comet from Mars at its closest approach. Gas from the comet is likely to have hit Mars, and would have done so at a speed of 125,000 mph (56 kilometers/second. This gas may have disturbed the Mars atmosphere. Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado; NASA <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

These side by side craters look like the perfect snowman

THEMIS ART #79

The beautiful side of IC 335

Hubble sees a galaxy 60 million light-years away This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the galaxy IC 335 in front of a backdrop of distant galaxies. IC 335 is part of a galaxy group containing three other galaxies, and located in the Fornax Galaxy Cluster 60 million light-years away. As seen in this image, the disk of IC 335 appears edge-on from the vantage point of Earth. This makes it harder for astronomers to classify it, as most of the characteristics of a galaxy’s morphology — the arms of a spiral or the bar across the center — are only visible on its face. Still, the 45 000 light-year-long galaxy could be classified as an S0 type. These lenticular galaxies are an intermediate state in galaxy morphological classification schemes between true spiral and elliptical galaxies. They have a thin stellar disk and a bulge, like spiral galaxies, but in contrast to typical spiral galaxies they have used up most of the interstellar medium. Only a few new stars can be created out of the material that is left and the star formation rate is very low. Hence, the population of stars in S0 galaxies consists mainly of aging stars, very similar to the star population in elliptical galaxies. As S0 galaxies have only ill-defined spiral arms they are easily mistaken for elliptical galaxies if they are seen inclined face-on or edge-on as IC 335 here. And indeed, despite the morphological differences between S0 and elliptical class galaxies, they share some common characteristics, like typical sizes and spectral features. Both classes are also deemed "early-type" galaxies, because they are evolving passively. However, while elliptical galaxies may be passively evolving when we observe them, they have usually had violent interactions with other galaxies in their past. In contrast, S0 galaxies are either aging and fading spiral galaxies, which never had any interactions with other galaxies, or they are the aging result of a single merger between two spiral galaxies in the past. The exact nature of these galaxies is still a matter of debate. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

Dark Side Courtesy of Jupiter's Moon

Juno's Radiation Monitoring Investigation used the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) star camera to collect this high resolution image of the dark side of Jupiter during Perijove 11 on Feb. 7, 2018. The clouds are illuminated by moonlight from Jupiter's moon Io and the two bright spots are flashes of Jovian lightning. Juno was 41,000 miles (66,000 kilometers) from the cloud tops when this SRU image was collected. This is the closest view of Jupiter's lightning from a visible light camera to date. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22964

Hubble Explores the Hidden Dark Side of a Spiral Galaxy

This shining disk of a spiral galaxy sits approximately 25 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Sculptor. Named NGC 24, the galaxy was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1785, and measures some 40,000 light-years across. This picture was taken using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, known as ACS for short. It shows NGC 24 in detail, highlighting the blue bursts (young stars), dark lanes (cosmic dust), and red bubbles (hydrogen gas) of material peppered throughout the galaxy’s spiral arms. Numerous distant galaxies can also been seen hovering around NGC 24’s perimeter. However, there may be more to this picture than first meets the eye. Astronomers suspect that spiral galaxies like NGC 24 and the Milky Way are surrounded by, and contained within, extended haloes of dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that cannot be seen; instead, it reveals itself via its gravitational interactions with surrounding material. Its existence was originally proposed to explain why the outer parts of galaxies, including our own, rotate unexpectedly fast, but it is thought to also play an essential role in a galaxy’s formation and evolution. Most of NGC 24’s mass — a whopping 80 percent — is thought to be held within such a dark halo. Image Credit: NASA/ESA <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Aerials of NASA Langley Research Center

2007-2012 Double-sided Mission Events Calendar, part of the Dawn Mission Art series. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19378

Dawn 2007-2012 Double-sided Mission Events Calendar

Is it a bird, or a plane? No, it comet Siding Spring streaking across the sky, as seen by NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. An animation is available at the Photojournal.

Ablaze with Infrared Light

This cut-out from a color panorama image taken by NASA Curiosity rover shows the effects of the descent stage rocket engines blasting the ground. It comes from the right side of the thumbnail panorama obtained the Mast Camera.

A Set of Blast Marks in Color, Right Side

A Set of Blast Marks in Color, Left Side

This image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was obtained on October 30, 2014 by the OSIRIS scientific imaging system on the Rosetta spacecraft. The saturation of the image allows the viewer to see some surface structures on dark side of the comet.

Dark Side of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Saturated

This image from an animiation of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring were taken by the Mast Camera Mastcam on NASA Curiosity Mars rover as the comet passed near the red planet on Oct. 19, 2014.

Mars Curiosity Rover Views Comet Siding Spring

The rover for NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission, named Curiosity, is about 3 meters 10 feet long, not counting the additional length that the rover arm can be extended forward. The front of the rover is on the left in this side view.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity at JPL, Side View

From the Night Side

The night sides of Saturn and Tethys are dark places indeed. We know that shadows are darker areas than sunlit areas, and in space, with no air to scatter the light, shadows can appear almost totally black. Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) is just barely seen in the lower left quadrant of this image below the ring plane and has been brightened by a factor of three to increase its visibility. The wavy outline of Saturn's polar hexagon is visible at top center. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 15, 2015 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 88 miles (141 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18333