#PPOD: A bright ice cap of frozen water covers the North Pole of #Mars. In the winter, thin coverings of carbon dioxide and water frost cover this area, and these frosts finally disappear at the end of the Martian spring season. In this image, the winter frosts are about to disappear, and we can begin to see the surface features of the ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona; Description: Shane Byrne
#PPOD: This photo was published on social media by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot with the following caption:
Day 041, orbit 0639 – Technology and nature, two of my passions, in one shot. Our beautiful planet Earth, the Canadarm2, and the sunglint on the ISS solar panels. What a view! This picture was taken from the Cupola, looking forward and starboard (to the right).
Credit: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot
#PPOD: Saturn’s icy rings glow in this infrared view from NASA’s JWST, released on March 25, 2026. The rings are extremely bright because they are made of highly reflective water ice. Saturn’s poles appear distinctly grey-green, indicating light emitting at wavelengths around 4.3 microns. This feature could come from a layer of high-altitude aerosols in Saturn’s atmosphere that scatters light differently at those latitudes. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Processing: Joseph DePasquale
#PPOD: Seattle, Washington, is one of the cloudiest cities in the United States. But that infamous cloud cover is no match for the U.S.-Indian Earth satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), which is designed to peer straight through clouds. This image, captured by the L-band SAR instrument on the NISAR mission on Nov. 10, 2025, shows Seattle at the center, with Bainbridge Island to the left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#PPOD: These X-ray computed tomography (XCT) scans, released on March 17, 2026, give us a glimpse inside asteroid Bennu. They show the most common types of crack networks observed in Bennu samples. One has an extensive, interconnected framework of curved cracks, whereas the other has sparse, straight, flat fractures. Credit: NASA/Scott Eckley
#PPOD: This series of images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the fragmenting #comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) was taken over the course of three consecutive days: Nov. 8, 9, and 10, 2025. This is the first time Hubble has witnessed a comet so early in the process of breaking up. Credit: NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU); Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
#PPOD: Lee waves are atmospheric gravity waves that form when stable air flows over significant topographic obstacles like mountains, volcanoes, or large crater rims. As the wind is forced upward by the terrain, it undergoes adiabatic cooling, causing water vapor or CO2 to condense into visible, ripple-like clouds on the downwind (lee) side. They often appear as "cloud trains" or straight, parallel lines perpendicular to the wind direction. Credit: ESA's Mars Express/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
#PPOD: Saturn's fourth-largest moon, Dione, can be seen through the haze of the planet's largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 22, 2011, with the planet and its rings in the background. The north polar hood is visible on Titan here, appearing as a detached layer at the top of the moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
#PPOD: When they form, impact craters dig up material from below the surface and throw it outwards into what geologists call an ejecta blanket. The fastest ejected material travels the furthest, so material from different depths can end up at different distances from the crater.
This HiRISE image shows a pedestal crater in Arcadia Planitia, Mars, with material of varying brightness and color at different distances from the crater.
SETI Institute