Color Your Universe – NASA Solar System Exploration

All of NASA’s science missions are driven by powerful questions that help us better understand our planet, our solar system, and beyond. What vibrant colors do you bring to these exploration scenes?

Post your colored universe on social media with #ColorWithNASA and tag @NASASolarSystem for your chance to showcase your artwork on Solar System Exploration’s social media accounts and this page!

Week 6

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this coloring page:

• A house has been built in the sky for astronauts! For twenty years, the International Space Station (ISS) orbits around 400 kilometers from Earth as a scientific laboratory in the sky. The ISS is a partnership in which 19 countries have sent people to learn about living and working in space. Did you know that the ISS can be visible in your sky at night? Check the Spot the International Space Station website to find out when you can next see it from where you live.
• For more than 30 years, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning images of cosmic wonders and helps answer many of astronomy’s key questions, including insights into how stars, planets and galaxies are formed.
• NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is located on the coast of Florida. KSC is the primary launch center for NASA’s manned space flight missions. It has launched many iconic missions such as Apollo, the Space Shuttle, Commercial Crew, the Great Observatories and more! Check out our nasa.gov for up-to-date KSC launches!

What else can you discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. Famous for “out of this world” images
2. A laboratory and home for astronauts in orbit
3. A planet that revolves around other stars
4. The reason there is no air in the room

Week 5

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this coloring page:

• While the moon isn’t actually made of cheese (and no cows jump over it in space!), Earth’s moon is the only world outside of 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 send astronauts to Mars one day.
• There is a “time machine” that will take the baby pictures of the universe! NASA’s James Webb space telescope, starting in October 2021, will give scientists a much better picture of the early Universe, from previously unobserved formation of the first galaxies to a look at dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are located today shape the day.
• An icy moon of Jupiter, called Europa, contains a vast ocean that scientists believe is suitable for life. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will start in the 2020s, with the goal of telling us if that’s the case, as it studies the moon’s composition, interior, and geology. The mission has the potential to provide a new understanding of icy moons as places in our universe where life could take hold.

What else can you discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. A dusty place where stars are born
2. A place where you will find rocks rather than cheese
3. Two ocean worlds covered with ice
4. How to Soothe a Newborn Star

Week 4

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this coloring page:

• Currently on its way to the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to land on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The rover will look for signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. Riding with persistence is the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, a technology demonstration to test a powered flight on another world for the first time.
• NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 are currently exploring interstellar space, where no spacecraft has flown from Earth before. The Voyagers’ scientific goals were to conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the larger moons of the two planets. Voyager 2 then also flew past the planets Uranus and Neptune! The dual spacecraft traveled beyond the outer planets’ environs until they entered interstellar space in 2012 (Voyager 1) and 2018 (Voyager 2), meaning that they entered the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun, the heliosphere. left. A unique kind of time capsule, called the Golden Record, is attached to each spacecraft, with special symbols and messages designed to convey a story of our world.
• Asteroids are remnants of the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They are usually made of rock, metal or a combination of both. Scientists believe the asteroid 16 Psyche – a giant metal-rich asteroid that orbits the sun about three times as far as Earth – could reveal new information about how planets form. Launched in August 2022, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will be the first mission to explore a world likely made largely of metal, rather than rock or ice.

Use our Eyes on the Solar System online interactively to explore NASA spacecraft and planets in our solar system using real mission data!

What else can you discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. Where you can find the hits of our universe
2. A bot with questions about life
3. How an asteroid keeps its pants up
4. A spacecraft on its way to a metal world

Week 3

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this coloring page:

• The outer planets of our solar system include gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, as well as ice giants Uranus and Neptune.
• The outer solar system holds 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, and inspired our sense of wonder.
• NASA’s New Horizons mission, which is still in flight, was the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons up close. New Horizons sped deeper into the Kuiper Belt and was also the first spacecraft to closely explore a second Kuiper Belt object (named Arrokoth).
• Pluto’s classification as a planet has changed over the years. Since 2006, the complex world of icebergs and frozen plains has been classified as a dwarf planet. Pluto’s signature feature is a heart-shaped glacier the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined!

What else can you discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. A small planet with a big heart
2. A shortcut across space
3. A few ice giants
4. The universe has put some big, bright rings on it

Week 2

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this coloring page:

• Fifth in line from the sun, Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice the mass of all other planets combined. Jupiter is a type of planet known as a gas giant. Its features include clouds of ammonia and water that form streaks and swirls, and the Great Red Spot, a giant storm about twice the size of Earth that gives the planet its iconic look.
• Scientists have discovered 79 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, after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who first observed them in 1610.
• NASA’s Juno spacecraft is the first mission to give scientists a detailed, close-up view of Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft has created dozens of close-flybys, giving scientists an insight into how Jupiter formed and evolved, as well as providing details about its gravitational and magnetic fields and its atmosphere.
• Supermassive black holes are huge, dense objects buried in the hearts of galaxies. The gravity of a black hole is so powerful that it can attract nearby material – dust and gas, and even stars! In fact, their gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape it. Have you ever thought about what it is 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 discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. The only moon with its own magnetic field?
2. A “stellar” twins made of stars
3. The largest place in the solar system
4. A moon where you would see many volcanoes erupting

Week 1

Download the full size coloring page here ›

View the page for the colors of the semana en español ›

Here are a few NASA highlights from this image:

• Space can feel far from us at times, so we use science to bring the universe a little closer. For example, with telescopes we can observe space from Earth. And to bring scientific information and images back to Earth from space, spacecraft use the Deep Space Network, or DSN. The DSN is a collection of large radio antennas in different parts of the world.
• NASA has 10 headquarters, plus its Washington DC headquarters, that work together to make the space seem closer to home.
• The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft, a US-European partnership starting in November 2020, will track sea level and provide atmospheric data to support weather forecasting and climate modeling. Join the virtual NASA Social here before launch

What else can you discover in the picture? Here are a few tips to help you!

1. How we talk to distant spacecraft
2. Where America’s first robotic space “Explorer” came from
3. A way to get a closer look at the stars from Earth
4. This “sentry” keeps an eye on the height of our oceans