A MEETING WITH THE UNIVERSE

Cover Pictures

computer enhanced photo of Saturn's rings

Spectacular rings. Dramatic differences in Saturn's rings are revealed by computer-enhanced colors. The picture was generated from two images transmitted by the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 on August 17, 1981.

Solar bursts. Violence at the Sun's limb was photographed from a Naval Research Laboratory rocket on November 4, 1969. Since then, NASA satellites have watched events as the 11-year sunspot cycle bottomed-out, then rose to a notable peak.

photo of explosive activity on the sun's surface

photo of the explosive surface of thr volcanic moon Io

Dwarfing Mount St. Helens. Huge eruption on Io, moon of Jupiter, outclasses the volcanoes of Earth. The event was photographed by Voyager 1.

The Sun in action. A great eruption on the Sun, here imaged in color by a computer, was observed by the Solar Maximum Mission satellite in 1980. The Sun influences the Earth by means of its visible light and other radiation, outward streaming atomic and subatomic particles, and magnetic phenomena.

computer generated image of the sun's explosive surface