Images From Offworld

28 Photos

In Focus

Robotic probes launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and others are gathering information all across the solar system. We currently have spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, a comet, and Saturn; two operational rovers on Mars; and a recent close flyby of Pluto and its moons. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are still performing experiments in low Earth orbit and sending back amazing photos. With all these eyes in the sky, I’d like to take another opportunity to put together a recent photo album of our solar system—a set of family portraits, of sorts—as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries. This time, we have closeups of Pluto and of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a closer look at bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres, several eclipses, wonderful images of Saturn and its moons, and, of course, lovely images of our home, planet Earth.