Solar System Bodies

NASA's Planetary Photojournal (mirror site)
Easy access to thousands of images of planets, asteroids, and comets, taken by NASA spacecraft. New images are added daily. Download images in any format you need--from GIF to TIFF-depending on your own needs.

Welcome to the Planets (mirror site)
A collection of many of the best images from NASA's planetary exploration program. The collection has been extracted from the interactive program "Welcome to the Planets" which was distributed on the Planetary Data System Educational CD-ROM Version 1.5 in December 1995. Includes narrated captions and mission information.

Planetary Data System
NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) archives and distributes digital data from past and present NASA planetary missions, astronomical observations, and laboratory measurements. The PDS is sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Science to ensure the long-term usability of data, to stimulate research, to facilitate data access, and to support correlative analysis.

Planetary Image Atlas
NASA's Planetary Data System's Image Atlas is designed to be a single interface through which you can search for, display, and download images and other ancillary data for many planetary missions.

Views of the Solar System (Available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French)
Calvin J. Hamilton's site presents a vivid multimedia adventure unfolding the splendor of the Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and more. Discover the latest scientific information, or study the history of space exploration, rocketry, early astronauts, space missions, spacecraft through a vast archive of photographs, scientific facts, text, graphics and videos. Views of the Solar System offers enhanced exploration and educational enjoyment of the solar system and beyond.

3-D Tour of the Solar System
These collections of 3-D images of the planets and their moons provide a unique perspective, and allow us to sense the topography of planetary surfaces in ways that are otherwise not possible. The CD-ROM and slide set features representative 3-D images of the Sun, planets, moons, and asteroids, and an overview of the entire solar system. They also feature prominent examples of each major type of geologic feature, including impact craters, tectonic features, volcanoes, and river valleys. Images of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars, and of atmospheric features, are also included. There are also a Teacher's Guide and posters. Provided by the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The Nine Planets
The Nine Planets is an overview of the history, mythology, and current scientific knowledge of each of the planets and moons in our solar system. Each page has text and images, some have sounds and movies, most provide references to additional related information. Provided by William Arnett.

The Sun

Yohkoh Solar Observatory Images of the Sun
Collections of still images, movies, and explanations from the Yohkoh solar observatory
satellite, a cooperative mission of Japan, the USA, and the UK. Yohkoh was launched in 1991, and has observed the solar atmosphere in soft X-ray radiation continuously since then.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
SOHO is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. SOHO observes the Sun continuously from a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers sunward of the Earth.

Comprehensive List of Sun-Earth Connection Image Resources
The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum is a partnership between NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. Our mission is to increase science literacy and steward Sun-Earth Connection science resources. Includes images, movies, sounds, and information for educators.

Earth and Moon

Shuttle Mission Images
NASA's Johnson Space Center's Digital Image Collection includes over 250,000 images, primarily of the Earth from the Space Shuttle, as well as the Moon by the Apollo missions. Many of these images have been digitized from still images dating from the days when digital imaging did not exist. Digital images are not available for all images referenced by the graphical browser.

Apollo Project
Press release images from NASA's Johnson Space Center's Digital Image Collection.

Radar Images of Earth
Spaceborne radar allows us to observe Earth and other bodies in the solar system day and night through cloud cover or smoke. Radar can be used to determine roughness, slope, and electrical properties such as water content. Using two radars together allows construction of topographic images and surface maps.

Astronaut's Views of Earth
The NASA Space Shuttle Earth Observations Photography database of over 375,000 images illustrates some very interesting Earth features and processes, including cities as seen by U.S. astronauts. Selected photos and related captions provide a glimpse of this national treasure to the public.

GOES Image Gallery
Data from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) provide unique information about existing and emerging storm systems both day and night and are a critical part of National Weather Service (NWS) operations.

NASA's Earth Observatory
NASA's Earth Observatory provides new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. particularly the atmosphere, oceans, land, energy, and life. The focus is on Earth's climate and environmental change.

Destination: Earth
NASA's Visible Earth is a growing central index of Earth-science related images being produced by several NASA projects.

Landsat Images
Landsat 7 is a U.S. satellite used to acquire remotely sensed images of the Earth's land surface and surrounding coastal regions. This site features Landsat 7 data characteristics, science and education applications, technical documentation, program policy, and history.

General Astronomy

Hubble Image Resources for Informal Science Projects
If you design exhibits, planetarium shows, video, or interactive multimedia, you need the highest quality media and expertise. Find it here!

Hubble Space Telescope (images in .tiff format)
Mostly optical images taken by the Hubble SpaceTelescope and prepared for release to the general public. The image files are organized by year (1990-2000) or by subject (nearby galaxies, nebulae,etc). Most images are available in several formats: low-res JPG, med-res JPG and PDF, and hi-res TIFF. The second link takes you straight to the TIFF catalog, but the images here are indexed only by their press release numbers, which you first have to look up elsewhere on the site.

Infrared Images
Contains links to several image galleries in the infrared, including IRAS, ISO, and the spectacular 2MASS (2-Micron All-Sky Survey) catalog. Most of the images are only on-line in low-res formats, but particularly at 2MASS you can contact the curator at 2mass@ipac.caltech.edu to inquire about the availability of hi-res TIFFs and JPGs.

X-Ray Images
Images taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray satellite, one of the four Great Space Observatories. Many of Chandra's images have become classics of X-Ray astronomy, and most are available in both low-res JPG and hi-res TIFF and PostScript formats.

Gamma-Ray Images
This site from the High Energy Astrophysics Archive at Goddard Space Flight Center contains Gamma-Ray and X-Ray images and data. Note that gamma ray images are typically low-resolution.

Astronomy Picture of the Day
This link takes you to the current Astronomy Picture of the Day, archived at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center. To access the entire archive, click on "Archive" at the bottom of the screen. Images range across the electromagnetic spectrum, and are available in med-res JPG format. The FAQ section says, "It is possible that higher resolution versions exist. To find these you should follow the informative links in the APOD text." Happy hunting!

STScI Digitized Sky Survey
Can't figure out the scale or field of view of an optical astronomical image? At this site you can enter the name or coordinates of an object and get back a black and white gif or fits image, all at the same field of view.

Helpful Sites

NASA Photo Gallery
The NASA Photo Gallery attempts to bring as many of NASA's still images as we can find to one location. This is not a unified searchable data base, though some of these collections have search capability. Some of these image archives are geared toward researchers rather than the general public and may require fast Internet connections and extensive memory. These links are included with more generally accessible archives to more accurately present the broad range of NASA's research programs. Some of these collections also may partially duplicate others.

NASA Image Exchange
The NASA Image eXchange (NIX) is a web-based search engine for simultaneously searching one or more of NASA's online image and photo collections. NIX returns thumbnail sized images, textual descriptions, image numbers, links to higher resolution images, links to more information, and links to the NASA Center that stores each image. Currently, not all NASA photos are online, not all of them are high-resolution, and not all NASA photo databases are linked to NIX. Currently, NIX searches databases of over 442,000 NASA images and links to another 250,000 images via the Additional NASA Imagery button.

Great Images in NASA
NASA's History Office's Great Images in NASA (GRIN) system provides a database of photos documenting NASA. Photos include: aircraft structures, aircraft design, aircraft models, wind tunnel tests, materials research, space programs projects, and historic events.

Tools

NASAView
NASAView is a Planetary Data System archive product display tool that runs on Sun/Solaris, Windows/NT/95, and PowerMac platforms with a common look-and-feel Graphical User Interface (GUI).

NIH Image
NIH Image is a public domain image processing and analysis program for the Macintosh. It was developed at the Research Services Branch (RSB) of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A free PC version of Image, called Scion Image for Windows, is available from Scion Corporation. There is also Image/J, a Java program inspired by Image that "runs anywhere". NIH Image manipulates, displays and analyses images.