11 min read
All of NASA’s science missions are driven by powerful questions to help us better understand our planet, our solar system, and beyond. What vibrant colors will you bring to these scenes of exploration?
Post your colored universe on social media with #ColorWithNASA and tag @NASASolarSystem for your chance to have your artwork featured on the Solar System Exploration social media accounts and this page!
In these coloring pages you’ve traveled our universe and explored what’s inside of it! From Earth’s Moon to the many moons of Jupiter, and from Mars to Jupiter to planets outside our solar system, you've learned more about our universe and how NASA explores it every day.
Cut along the dotted line of each coloring page and put them together to reveal this stellar poster!
Want to check the answers to our hints? Test your knowledge against the answers below:
- How we talk with distant spacecraft
Deep Space Network - Where America's first robotic space "Explorer" came from
Jet Propulsion Laboratory - A way to look at the stars up close from Earth
Telescope - This "sentinel" will monitor the height of our oceans
Sentinel 6 – Michael Freilich
- The only moon with its own magnetic field
Ganymede - Some "stellar" twins made of stars
Gemini constellation - The greatest spot in the solar system
Jupiter - A moon where you'd see lots of volcanoes erupting
Io
- A little planet with a big heart
Pluto - A shortcut through space
Worm hole - A couple of ice giants
Neptune & Uranus - The universe put some big, bright rings on it
Saturn
- Where you can find the hit tunes of our universe
The Golden Record on Voyagers 1 and 2 spacecraft - A bot with questions about life
Perseverance rover - How an asteroid holds up its pants
Asteroid belt - A spacecraft headed for a metal world
Psyche spacecraft
- A dusty place where stars are born
Nebula - A place where you are more likely to find rocks than cheese
Earth’s Moon - Two ocean worlds covered in ice
Europa & Enceladus - How to soothe a newborn star
Pacifier (while not scientifically correct, it’s fun to think about)
- Famous for "out of this world" images
Hubble Space Telescope - A laboratory and home for astronauts in orbit
International Space Station - A planet that orbits around other stars
Exoplanet - The reason there's no air in space
Vacuum
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this coloring page:
- There’s a home in the sky built for astronauts! For twenty years, the International Space Station (ISS) has orbited 250 miles from Earth, as a science lab in the sky. The ISS is a collaboration where 19 countries have sent people to learn about living and working in space. Did you know the ISS can be visible in your sky at night? Check out the Spot the International Space Station website to find out when you can see it next from where you live.
- For over 30 years, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning views of cosmic wonders, helping to answer many of astronomy’s major questions, including insights into how stars, planets, and galaxies form.
- Nestled on the coast of Florida sits NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). KSC is the primary launch center for NASA’s human spaceflight missions. It has launched many iconic missions like Apollo, the Space Shuttle, Commercial Crew, the Great Observatories and more! Check our nasa.gov for up to date launches from KSC!
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- Famous for "out of this world" images
- A laboratory and home for astronauts in orbit
- A planet that orbits around other stars
- The reason there's no air in space
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this coloring page:
- While the Moon is not actually made of cheese (nor are there cows jumping over it in space!), Earth’s Moon is the only world beyond Earth where humans have set foot. NASA’s Artemis program will send the first woman and the next man will visit the Moon. The Artemis program will provide scientists with data that will help us to one day send astronauts to Mars.
- A "time machine" exists that will take the Universe's baby pictures! Set to launch in October 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will give scientists a much closer look at the early Universe, from previously unobserved formation of the first galaxies to a look inside of dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.
- An icy moon of Jupiter, named Europa, contains a vast ocean that scientists believe could harbor conditions suitable for life. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will launch in the 2020s, aiming to tell us if that's the case, as it studies the moon’s composition, interior, and the geology. The mission has the potential to provide a new understanding of icy moons as places in our universe where life could find a foothold.
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- A dusty place where stars are born
- A place where you are more likely to find rocks than cheese
- Two ocean worlds covered in ice
- How to soothe a newborn star
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this coloring page:
- Currently in route to the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to land on Mars on February 18, 2021. The rover will seek signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. Riding along with Perseverance is the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time.
- NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 are currently exploring interstellar space, where no spacecraft from Earth has flown before. The Voyagers' science goals were to conduct closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings, and the larger moons of the two planets. Voyager 2 then flew past the planets Uranus and Neptune, too! The twin spacecraft journeyed beyond the neighborhood of the outer planets until, in 2012 (Voyager 1) and 2018 (Voyager 2), they entered interstellar space, meaning they exited the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun called the heliosphere. A unique kind of time capsule, called the Golden Record, is attached to each spacecraft, with special symbols and messages intended to communicate a story of our world.
- Asteroids are remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They are mostly made of rock, metal, or a combination of both. Scientists believe that the asteroid 16 Psyche – a giant metal-rich asteroid, that orbits the Sun about three times farther away than Earth – could reveal new information about how planets form. Launching in August 2022, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will be the first mission to investigate a world likely made largely of metal, rather than rock or ice.
Use our Eyes on the Solar System online interactive to explore NASA spacecraft and planets in our solar system using real mission data!
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- Where you can find the hit tunes of our universe
- A bot with questions about life
- How an asteroid holds up its pants
- A spacecraft headed for a metal world
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this coloring page:
- The outer planets of our solar system include gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, along with ice giants Uranus and Neptune.
- The outer solar system contains a wealth of interest for scientists. For example, Saturn: from 2004 to 2017 NASA’s Cassini-Huygens mission explored Saturn and its family of icy moons. Cassini revealed the beauty of Saturn, its rings and moons, inspiring our sense of wonder.
- Still in flight today, NASA’s New Horizons mission was the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons up close. Speeding deeper into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons was also the first spacecraft to explore a second Kuiper Belt object (named Arrokoth) up close.
- Pluto’s classification as a planet has changed over the years. Since 2006, the complex world of ice mountains and frozen plains has been classified as a dwarf planet. Pluto’s signature feature is a heart-shaped glacier that’s the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined!
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- A little planet with a big heart
- A shortcut through space
- A couple of ice giants
- The universe put some big, bright rings on it
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this coloring page:
- Fifth in line from the Sun, Jupiter is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter is a type of planet known as a gas giant. Its features include clouds of ammonia and water that form stripes and swirls, and the Great Red Spot, a gigantic storm about twice the size of Earth that gives the planet its iconic look.
- Scientists have discovered 79 (and counting) moons orbiting Jupiter, the most moons of any planet in our solar system. Of those many moons, the four largest – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – receive the most intense scientific interest. They are known as the Galilean satellites, for Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who first observed them in 1610.
- NASA’s Juno spacecraft is the first mission to give scientists a detailed, up-close look at Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft has made dozens of close flybys, giving scientists insight into how Jupiter formed and evolved, and providing details of its gravitational and magnetic fields, and its atmosphere.
- Supermassive black holes are enormous, dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. A black hole's gravity is so powerful that it can pull in nearby material – dust and gas, and even stars! In fact, their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape them. Have you ever thought about what it’s like to visit a black hole? While we wouldn’t recommend it, here’s NASA’s Guide to Black Hole Safety.
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- The only moon with its own magnetic field?
- Some "stellar" twins made of stars
- The greatest spot in the solar system
- A moon where you'd see lots of volcanoes erupting
Here are a few NASA highlights featured in this image:
- Space can sometimes feel far away from us, so we use science to bring the universe a little bit closer. For example, using telescopes, we can observe space from Earth. And to bring scientific information and pictures back to Earth from space, spacecraft use the Deep Space Network, or DSN. The DSN is a collection of big radio antennas in different parts of the world.
- NASA has 10 main locations, plus its Headquarters in Washington D.C. that work together to help space seem closer to home.
- A U.S.-European collaboration launching in November 2020, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft is set to track sea level and will provide atmospheric data to support weather forecasting and climate models. Join the virtual NASA Social for launch here
What else can you uncover in the picture? Here are a few hints to help you out!
- How we talk with distant spacecraft
- Where America's first robotic space "Explorer" came from
- A way to look at the stars up close from Earth
- This "sentinel" will monitor the height of our oceans
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Last Updated
Nov 04, 2024
Editor
NASA Science Editorial Team
