Introduction to the Photojournal

Welcome to the Photojournal. The Photojournal is your interface to the Planetary Image Archive (PIA) contained within the Planetary Data System Imaging Node. The home page graphic serves as a high-level entry point to the thousands of high-resolution images and their accompanying products which have been made available to the public from data returned by various JPL missions over the course of many years.

Access to these exciting and often spectacular images is only a click away. If you would like to explore our neighbor in space, the marvelous red planet Mars, from afar or up close or in microscopic detail, simply click on the picture of Mars. If you fancy images of spectacular nebulae, dying stars, or potential planet-forming disks, click anywhere in the spiral universe. Enjoy breathtaking images of the giant, ringed planet and its many moons, by clicking on Saturn. Click on the comet near Small Bodies and see how a man-made probe found its final destination by crashing into a comet.

When you click on any part of the graphic, you are actually linking to an image gallery which is a category within the Photojournal database where we have placed like images. All images of Mars, for example, irrespective of the mission and/or spacecraft, are collected in the Mars gallery. Likewise, all images of Earth are found in the Earth gallery. For a list of all the galleries available, click on Select an Image Gallery.

After you've made your selection, you will be presented with a listing of thumbnail images and their titles. Click on the thumbnail of your choice and you will see a Catalog Page which will include a caption of scientific detail about what you are seeing, and information about the mission, spacecraft and instruments, and dedicated mission teams that made the image possible. We have also provided a navigation bar at the top of each page with more useful links for your perusal. Our FAQ may provide answers to some initial questions.

As new images are added to the PIA on a daily basis, we have provided you with a quick way to find these new additions. Simply click on the words Latest Images at the far left end of the navigation bar found at the top of any page. When selected, this link will present you with all the images and their ancillary products which have been released during the previous seven days.

We also provide a number of search mechanisms to aid you with in-depth searches from the database for images from specific missions, spacecraft, and/or instruments aboard the spacecraft. In addition to the photographic images you may have seen in magazines or television broadcasts, the actual data used to create these images are also available via the Photojournal (see Primary Data Sets found on the catalog page in the legend to the right of the image).

While the focus of the Photojournal is mainly on planetary systems, we have expanded our vision to include images created by JPL's cutting-edge technological visualization and image processing tools, and images about the spacecraft and instruments responsible for data used to create the images, some of which may be viewed in our Spacecraft and Technology gallery. Also featured on the navigation bar at the top of each page are links to spectacular Animations, and a Sitemap where you can find links to JPL's Executive Council, JPL Wallpaper, the JPL Multimedia Page, and JPL's Space Images app.

Although we have tried to make the Photojournal easy and intuitive to use, we recognize that questions will remain. If you are ever confused about how to use this system, please do not hesitate to send us an e-mail.

The only thing that might be required in using the Photojournal is patience. Usually, the system runs quickly. However, due to the distributed nature of the data and the amount of traffic on this web site, some queries and actions can take a little longer. The system is designed to be used as a fast way to find a particular image product, but can also used as an image browser as well. If you wish to simply scan through the available images, you are able to do so.

If this introductory page has not been clear, please help us to help you by sending your comments. In the meantime, we encourage you to explore and enjoy the Photojournal. And, please, come again!