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Sinister Solar System

A witch appears to be screaming in space in this image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
Credits: NASA/WISE

Our universe is full of mysterious sights and sounds. Explore some of our most frightful Halloween finds.

Sinister Solar System Features

  1. NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the silhouette of the Martian moon Phobos as it passed in front of the Sun on Sept. 30, 2024. The video shows the transit speeded up by four times, followed by the eclipse in real time.
    NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the silhouette of the Martian moon Phobos as it passed in front of the Sun on Sept. 30, 2024.
    01

    Perseverance Captures ‘Googly Eye’ During Solar Eclipse

    From its perch on the western wall of Mars’ Jezero Crater, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently spied a “googly eye” peering down from space. The pupil in this celestial gaze is the Martian moon Phobos, and the iris is our Sun.

    See the 'Eye'

  2. Two spiral galaxies take the shape of a colorful beaded mask that sits above the nose. The galaxy at left, IC 2163, is smaller, taking up a little over a quarter of the view. The galaxy at right, NGC 2207, takes up half the view, with its spiral arms reaching the edges. IC 2163 has a bright orange core, with two prominent spiral arms that rotate counter clockwise and become straighter towards the ends, the left side extending almost to the edge. Its arms are a mix of pink, white, and blue, with an area that takes the shape of an eyelid appearing whitest. NGC 2207 has a very bright core. Overall, it appears to have larger, thicker spiral arms that spin counter clockwise. This galaxy also contains more and larger blue areas of star formation that poke out like holes from the pink spiral arms. In the middle, the galaxies’ arms appear to overlap. The edges show the black background of space, including extremely distant galaxies that look like orange and red smudges, and a few foreground stars.
    This observation combines mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and ultraviolet and visible light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
    02

    ‘Blood-Soaked’ Eyes: NASA’s Webb, Hubble Examine Galaxy Pair

    Stare deeply at these galaxies. They appear as if blood is pumping through the top of a flesh-free face. The long, ghastly “stare” of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic darkness.

    Explore

  3. Animated GIF of comet/asteroid that looks like a skull.
    This animation was created using radar data collected by the National Science Foundation's 1,000-foot (305-meter) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
    03

    That Halloween When a Dead Comet Flew by Earth

    A large space rock zipped past Earth on Halloween in 2015. It most likely was a dead comet and, fittingly, it had an eerie resemblance to a skull.

    More About the Dead Comet

  4. In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember. The hand reaches up from the bottom of the image, the ghostly blue flesh and white bones representing pulsar wind nebula X-rays observed by Chandra. A bright white spot in the wrist is the pulsar itself. Just beyond the hand’s fingertips, near our upper right, is a mottled yellow and orange shape that appears to glow from within. This is the low energy X-ray cloud observed by Chandra.
    Pulsar wind nebulas like MSH 15-52 are clouds of energetic particles, producing X-rays, that are driven away from dead collapsed stars. X-rays from Chandra (gold and blue); infrared from the Dark Energy Camera KPNO Blanco 4.0m (red and blue)
    04

    NASA X-ray Telescopes Reveal the “Bones” of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand

    In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and used them to image the bones in his wife’s hand, kicking off a revolutionary diagnostic tool for medicine. Now two of NASA’s X-ray space telescopes have combined their imaging powers to unveil the magnetic field “bones” of a remarkable hand-shaped structure in space. Together, these telescopes reveal the behavior of a dead collapsed star that lives on through plumes of particles of energized matter and antimatter.

    Learn More

  5. The red giant star CW Leonis resembles orange-red cobwebs.
    05

    Hubble Celebrates Halloween With a Glowering, Dying Star

    A hypnotizing vortex? A peek into a witch's cauldron? A giant space-spider web? Nope, it's a Hubble image of the red giant star CW Leonis. The image comes just in time for celebrating Halloween with creepy celestial sights.

    Explore CW Leonis

  6. NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft photographed this "face" on Mars on July 25, 1976, while searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander.
    06

    Strange, Alien Face on Mars

    NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft photographed this region of Mars on July 25, 1976, while searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander. Due to processing errors, the photo became famous because it resembles a human (or maybe alien?) face.

    Learn More About the 'Face'

  7. The Lucy fossil photographed in 2009.
    07

    Lucy Spacecraft is Named for a Skeleton

    Around Halloween 2021, NASA launched the Lucy mission on a journey to a part of our solar system that has swarms of mysterious Trojan asteroids. And the spacecraft is actually named for a skeleton! Lucy is named for a fossilized skeleton of a human ancestor, which was named for the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

    Learn About Lucy's Name

  8. Eruptions on the Sun resemble a grinning Halloween pumpkin
    Active regions on the Sun make it look like a jack-o'-lantern.
    08

    Scary Pumpkin Sun

    Active regions on the Sun combined to look like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8, 2014. The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy — markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of wavelengths at 171 and 193 angstroms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.

    Learn More

  9. A pulsar spins in the middle of this animation with a companion star orbiting around it. The pulsar is represented by a small white dot with two cones of radiation emanating from either side. The cones have a white interior with green outlines closer to the pulsar changing to purple further away. As the animation proceeds, the cones spin around the central pulsar. A sphere representing the pulsar’s companion orbits around the pulsar, and as it does, a continuous cloud of material blows behind it, expanding outward to create a diffuse spiral. The image is watermarked: “Illustration.”
    In this illustration of a black widow pulsar from above its orbital plane, gas blown off the companion star trails along its orbit and diffuses throughout the system but is densest along their orbital plane.
    NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Cruz deWilde
    09

    With A Deadly Embrace, ‘Spidery’ Pulsars Consume Their Mates

    Black widow spiders and their Australian cousins, known as redbacks, are notorious for their tainted love, expressed as an unsettling tendency to kill and devour their male partners. Astronomers have noted similar behavior among two rare breeds of binary system that contain rapidly spinning neutron stars, also known as pulsars.

    Learn About 'Spidery' Pulsars

  10. A line drawing highlights parts of this nebula that resemble the movie monster Godzilla.
    010

    A ‘Monster' Star-Forming Region Spied by NASA's Spitzer

    Do you see a monster in this picture? Do the bright spots near the top of the image look like the piercing eyes and elongated snout of Godzilla?

    More About the 'Monster'

Take a Haunted Hayride Through the Sinister Solar System

Happy Halloween, space explorers! Carve out a few moments in your busy schedule, and join our haunted hayride to disturbing destinations in our sinister solar system. There are some fearful places ahead. Put on a spacesuit. All right, everyone on the hay wagon!

Sinister Sounds of the Solar System

Have you heard the scary noises from across our universe before? Using data from our spacecraft, scientists gathered sinister sounds from the depths of space. Listen to our playlist filled with new “moans” and “whistles” that would scare the most ghoulish of creatures.

Halloween Activities and Downloads

  1. 01

    Decorate Your Walls With the 'Horrors' of Our Galaxy​

    Learn more about zombie worlds, rains of terror, and flares of furry when you decorate your walls with the Galaxy of Horrors posters. Get in the sinister spirit and download the posters.

    Download

  2. 02

    Make a Planet Mask!

    Looking for easy costume ideas this year? Become one of your favorite planets! Download these printable face cut-outs.

    Download

  3. 03

    NASA Pumpkin Stencils

    Celebrate the fall season and Halloween by making your very own NASA Space Place pumpkins with these easy-to-use stencils!

    Get Your Stencils

  4. 04

    How Scary is Space?

    In a scary Halloween movie, monsters, ghouls, and haunted houses can give you the creeps! Those things are, of course, just stories that were made up to give you a fright. If you want a real scare, check out these nine unearthly nightmares that could be happening right now in our own galaxy. Eek!

    Explore

  5. 05

    Travel to the Universe of Monsters

    In dark corners of the galaxy are worlds fit for creatures of the night. Explore the homes of Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula’s lair, the place where zombies roam, and more.

    Start Your Journey

  6. 06

    Enjoy Planet Candies

    A whimsical collection of cosmic candies. Ready to download and share. Enjoy.

    Download Candy Planets

  7. 07

    Carve a Pumpkin Like a NASA Engineer

    Our engineers are famous for designing spacecraft and telescopes, but did you know they were out-of-this-world pumpkin carvers? View their handiwork.

    See the Pumpkins

  8. 08

    Use Candy to Describe Rocks like a Scientist

    Pick your favorite Halloween candy bar and learn how to study rocks like NASA scientists do!

    Dive In

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Last Updated
Nov 05, 2024
Editor
NASA Science Editorial Team

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