Gallery .
.The Space We Love
We asked space explorers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to share their favorite NASA image. See what they chose and why in the slideshow below.
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Saturn's Rings in a New Light
My favorite Cassini image is this montage created during a Saturn eclipse of the Sun. This backlit mosaic of 141 images reveals all of Saturn’s key rings. The dusty rings are usually too faint to see from Earth, but with sunlight shining through them during the eclipse, they are easily visible. As a ring scientist, I think that Saturn has the best rings in the solar system, and it is so wonderful to be able to see all of the planet’s rings in one picture.
Only Cassini could have captured this unique view of Saturn and its rings. The images include new rings that Cassini discovered that are associated with some of Saturn’s tiny inner moons. The bluish, glowing E-ring looks like a giant halo circling Saturn. Saturn’s atmosphere refracts sunlight around the edge of the limb, capturing every Saturn sunrise and sunset in the white ring around the planet’s disk!
Three other planets are also in this picture: Venus, Mars and Earth. In July 2013, while Cassini was taking pictures of Earth, we asked people around the world to send us pictures of themselves waving at Saturn. I was outside with my husband Tom waving at Saturn while a friend took a picture of us. We recreated the Saturn mosaic from all the selfies we received. It was amazing to think that Cassini was taking pictures of Earth from nearly a billion miles away.
– Linda Spilker, Cassini mission lead scientist
Saturn's Icy and Active Moon
This is a picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2008 when it made one of its closest encounters with Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Enceladus is a very special moon for astrobiologists because it is an ocean world covered by a thick ice crust, which gets energy from tidal flexing as it orbits Saturn. This makes Enceladus a great candidate for possibly hosting living organisms. Most important, it has geysers (or jets) at its south pole that are constantly spewing water from the moon’s core out into space. In the future, we could fly a spacecraft right into the plumes and take samples in order to evaluate the composition of Enceladus’ interior – and potentially detect life.
My very first task when I joined JPL was to work as a systems engineer on a proposal for this exact mission concept. The concept was new and exciting, but also faced a number of technical challenges, including trying to power a spacecraft using solar arrays all the way out at Saturn. (Our arrays could only power three light bulbs at that distance.) I worked with an amazing team of scientists and engineers from all over the country and the world, and got my first taste of what it was like to work together to achieve a common scientific goal. While the mission was not selected to move forward at the time, I’m optimistic that a mission like it will fly during my career – and hopefully I’ll be involved in making it happen!
– Farah Alibay, InSight mission engineer
The First Mars Rover
Twenty years later, this pixelated image still brings joy to my heart. I remember seeing this picture and others like it in the summer of 1997 and realizing for the first time that space is alive!
The fact that there was a tiny rover, driving around Mars, built by humans, and operated from Earth was a revelation for me. Maybe I should have known better, but I imagined someone on Earth, driving it around with a joystick, and was inspired to pursue a career in aerospace engineering.
Fifteen years later I would be helping to put another rover on Mars – Curiosity – more knowledgeable about how they really work, and eagerly awaiting the latest picture (which we can all enjoy together here).
Still, this pioneering image reminds me not only of my experiences, but also of the shoulders of giants (no matter how big the rover) on which we stand.
– Bobak Ferdowsi, NISAR mission engineer
A Human Endeavor
When Neil Armstrong took “one small step” onto the surface of the Moon in 1969, he was not alone. Buzz Aldrin was right behind him and Michael Collins was in orbit above.
Back on Earth, it took a team of 400,000 people to get them there. Margaret Hamilton was one of the most crucial. Here she stands next to her calculations and the code she wrote to get us to the Moon.
I love this image. It reminds me that NASA’s work is a human endeavor. That’s what this picture means to me: The men and women of NASA working together to break barriers, of understanding and otherwise.
– Kristen Walbolt, JPL web producer
Above image credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Spirit of Exploration
I think it’s pretty amazing that humans went from the flying the first airplane to walking on the Moon in a single person’s lifetime. In my opinion, space exploration is the pinnacle of human achievement, and I feel extraordinarily lucky to be able to participate.
When I look up at the Moon through a telescope and I see the fine details on its surface and the shadows cast by its craters, it transforms from a seemingly static disk in the sky into an incredibly dynamic world with its own mountains and valleys and topography. It’s hurtling through space at amazing speed, pulling on us as it does so. Honestly, I find it awesome in the true sense of the word.
It makes me think of the countless other worlds throughout the universe. The sheer immensity is unbelievable and staggering – and the fact that some guy just walked on one of those worlds and here’s a picture of him doing it just makes me happy to be alive.
– Keith Gildea, Mars 2020 engineer
Looking Home and to the Future
As a young child, I remember seeing this picture hanging in the hallway at home. It sparked my curiosity on so many levels, and that initial interest in the Moon quickly expanded to include other places in the solar system.
Several years ago, I found that picture in my mom's storage and took it home. It's now framed and hangs on a wall in my house as a reminder of how a single image sparked a lifelong interest in space exploration. It’s also a reminder of how that spark ultimately led to a job with NASA that allows me to help teachers inspire scientists and engineers of the future.
– Lyle Tavernier, JPL education specialist
Shadow Illusion on Mars
I was a little kid when I first saw this eerie Mars image from the Viking 1 mission showing what looked kind of like a face. It shook me so much that I had to quit reading my textbook for the day. That grainy face just stewed in my imagination. I had so many questions!
Although it was later discovered to be a shadow illusion, this image opened my eyes to the possibility that we will find some really strange and exciting stuff going on all around us in space if we just keep exploring.
– Jeff Carlson, Mars 2020 engineer
Bright Spots and Intrigue on Ceres
Since Dawn was the first mission I worked on in JPL's media relations office, I feel I should mention one of the spectacular views of Ceres that Dawn has delivered. In February 2015, before entering orbit at Ceres, Dawn captured this image of the previously unexplored dwarf planet that showed what appeared to be two bright "lights" in the center of a crater. We know now, having seen the crater up close, that there are a multitude of bright spots in that crater and that they are made of salt, which reflects light rather than producing it. This was an image that really got me excited about working on Dawn and sharing the amazing feats of the mission.
– Liz Landau, JPL senior storyteller
A Place to Be Inspired
JPL’s location feels as if buildings were copy and pasted right into the middle of a forest. I think the nature is really inspiring, and it’s easy to forget that real people on planet Earth make these incredible space missions happen (alongside the deer).
– Liz Barrios De La Torre, JPL visual strategist
Volcano on Jupiter's Moon Io
The reason I like this image of Tupan Patera is because it's a great-looking volcano on Io. We discovered it to be active during the Galileo mission, and think it is a lava lake, about 70 kilometers (almost 44 miles) across. The dark areas are hot while the reds and yellows are cold and have sulfur deposits.
I suggested the name Tupan to the International Astronomical Union. Tupan is the Brazilian native god of thunder and I am from Brazil so I knew about the mythological Tupan. Io has many active volcanoes but I think this is one of the most spectacular-looking ones and my personal favorite.
- Rosaly Lopes, senior research scientist
Phoenix Lander Descends to Mars
This spectacular image of the Mars Phoenix Lander parachuting down to the Martian surface was taken by the HiRISE camera onboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I chose this image because not only is it a great achievement in terms of engineering and planning, but it also captures two Mars missions that have personal importance to me.
My first job after transitioning from a JPL postdoc to an employee was as part of the Mars Phoenix surface operations team - I was one of the instrument sequencing engineers, or the people who put together the commands for the lander's science activities each day. It was a wonderful, jump-in-with-both-feet introduction to the world of spacecraft science operations. A year after Phoenix ended, I joined MRO's operations team as the investigation scientist for HiRISE. My job is to be HiRISE's representative at JPL and to keep the lines of communication open between the science team and the spacecraft operations team.
I'm very proud to be part of the team that works hard to bring back spectacular images of the Martian surface and provide a wonderful dataset for Mars science.
- Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist
Malaspina Glacier in Alaska
This is a Landsat perspective image of Malaspina Glacier in Alaska, using topography from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). I love all the textures in the image and how the glacier looks like water. It looks like the solid Earth and a liquid glacier are both flowing down toward you.
Every time I see it I am reminded of the beauty of Earth from space and the creativity of the scientists and engineers who produce images from numbers (spacecraft send images back to Earth as digital numbers that are then reconstructed into images). Although I've never been to this glacier, or even to Alaska, when I look at this image I tell myself that from the ground, there's no way it could look this cool.
I'm the Outreach Lead for NASA's Jason-1 and OSTM/Jason-2 missions but I've spent more than 20 years working for Spaceborne Imaging Radar teams and still appreciate the data from those missions.
- Annie Richardson, outreach lead, Jason missions
Distant Galaxies in the Universe
I have been an avid space enthusiast my entire life, and NASA has produced many images that I easily could call my favorite. I selected this Hubble Space Telescope photo because of its grandeur. Think of looking at a tiny part of the sky that appears about as small as the period at the end of this sentence. There lie a dizzying number of galaxies!
All the glowing jewels in this picture, some more than one billion times fainter than you could see with your naked eye, are immense collections of stars fantastically far away. In this one wonderful image lie 10 thousand galaxies, each one larger than everything we experience, larger than our world, larger than our solar system, larger even than everything we see in a beautiful star-studded sky on the darkest night. I love this picture, because it shows the universe. Period.
- Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission manager
NASA Astronaut Ronald McNair
My favorite NASA image is that of NASA Astronaut Ronald E. McNair. Although not the first African-American astronaut, he was the one that stood out to me the most and helped influence several decisions in my life that ultimately led me to the same undergraduate institution (North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro) and to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This image is so special to me now and was so special to me as a child because it gives me hope! What I see in this image is a black man who must have been very smart and worked very hard to get to this point where his smile exudes extreme happiness and pride for being selected as one of the few human beings who gets to represent his country while traveling into space!
The image gave me hope as a child that if I continued to do well in school and made wise decisions in how I chose to live my life, then I too could achieve that ultimate goal because someone that looks like me has done it before.
This image continues to give me hope as a young man now that I am eligible to apply to the U.S. Astronaut Corp. -- hope that selection to the Corp. is realistic and hope that even in failure I could find just as much joy and happiness in the pursuit of that dream, the life I have created for myself, and the career that I have chosen.
- Curtis Wilkerson, Juno quality assurance engineer
Spirit Rover on Mars
Every journey begins with a single step. This is not the first picture from NASA's Spirit rover, nor her greatest picture. It marks the first time her six wheels touched Martian soil as she successfully drove off the lander at Gusev Crater, just after midnight on Jan. 15, 2004.
This small drive for rover-kind marked the beginning of an astonishing adventure that would cover more than 7 kilometers (about 4 miles) across the Martian surface – exploring rocks, craters and hills – and unlocking the ancient and aquatic history of Mars as she went. It also marked the beginning of a personal adventure that ran in parallel with the Martian adventures of Spirit and Opportunity. That adventure ultimately led me to Pasadena, six years later.
- Doug Ellison, visualization producer
Neptune and its Moon Triton
This is one of my favorite pictures. It's the crescents of Neptune and Triton as NASA's Voyager 2 is leaving the planets behind and journeying into the outer solar system.
My first job after college was working on the Voyager 2 encounters at Uranus and Neptune, and this image of Voyager leaving the planets behind reminds me of all the excitement and fun we had on the project. It also marked an end to my time on Voyager. Little did I know that I would come back to be the Voyager project manager 20 years later!
- Suzy Dodd, Voyager project manager
Earth As a 'Pale Blue Dot'
Without a doubt, my favorite NASA image is this iconic view, dubbed the "Pale Blue Dot." This snapshot of our very small Earth (the dot in the right “column”) was taken at a distance of over four billion miles by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, in part of the first-ever portrait of the solar system.
In the words of Carl Sagan, “That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives."
- Courtney O'Connor, social media specialist
Stellar Family: The North American Nebula
I love these images, and not just because they're my data. Well, it helps that it's my data but this whole region is really neat.
One cool thing is that the region looks completely and utterly different when viewed with Spitzer (infrared light). You have to work to find things in common.
Another cool thing is the “Gulf of Mexico.” It's the most dramatic part of this already spectacular region, with more than 200 very young stars tightly clustered along a “river” of dark dust. Before I got these Spitzer data, there were about 200 young stars known in this entire complex. Now, we suspect that there are 2100 young stars, 10 times more!
- Luisa Rebull, research scientist, Spitzer Science Center
Gallery Last Updated: Oct. 31, 2024