Humans once fantasized about viewing other worlds, but thanks to theological advances in the last century, we can now do so.
In this article, we will show real images of planets or other worlds.
The Real Images of Planets
Earth
Starting with our home planet, there are many images of our planet from space, but there are a few that are particularly intriguing Like this one.
Earth Image from Moon
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| Earth Image from Moon |
Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and some of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell declared it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken".
First Earth Image from Moon
On Aug. 23, 1966, the world received its first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was transmitted to Earth by the Lunar Orbiter I and received at the NASA tracking station at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid, Spain. The image was taken during the spacecraft's 16th orbit.
Moon
The Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite and it is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet.
We have many pictures of our moon, but as we said earlier, we are only going to show the most special ones, like this one.
First Photo of the Lunar Farside
In October of 1959, the Luna 3 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Luna 3 was the third spacecraft to reach the Moon and the first to send back pictures of the Moon's far side.
The pictures were noisy and indistinct, but because the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth, they offered views of a part of the Moon that had never been seen before.
The far side of the Moon is surprisingly different. The most striking difference evident in the Luna 3 pictures is the absence of the large, dark seas of cooled lava, called maria, that cover a substantial fraction of the Earth-facing near side.
The far side is instead densely peppered with impact craters of every size and age.
First Photo from the Surface of the Moon
Close-up image of the Oceanus Procellarum region of the Moon from the Soviet Luna 9 lander in February 1966.
Luna 9 made the first survivable landing on the moon and snapped the first photos from its surface.
Mercury
Water Ice on Mercury
The Rim of Rembrandt
Mars
First Picture From the Surface of Mars
The first photograph was ever taken on the surface of the planet Mars. It was obtained by Viking 1 just minutes after the spacecraft landed successfully landing on Mars in July 1976.
Martian Cloud
Using the navigation cameras on its mast, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took these images of clouds just after sunset on March 28, 2021, the 3,072nd so, or Martian day, of the mission. These noctilucent, or twilight clouds, are made of water ice; ice crystals reflect the setting sun, allowing the detail in each cloud to be seen more easily.
Mars Helicopter to Make First Flight Attempt
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This image was captured by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on the following sol, April 8, 2021.
Venus
The first images of the surface of Venus
The first images of the surface of Venus were returned by the Soviet Union's Venera 9 and 10 spacecraft on 22 and 25 October 1975. The two spacecraft sent back black and white images for 53 and 65 minutes respectively before contact with them was lost.
Color panoramas of Venus's surface
The Soviet Union's Venera 13 probe captured color panoramas of Venus's surface in 1982. This panorama came from the rear camera.
Saturn
First close-up pictures of Saturn's rings
Although Pioneer 11 holds the distinction of taking the first close-up image of Saturn (left, with its largest moon Titan also in the frame), the superior resolution afforded by the Voyager probes (right, seen with the moons Tethys, Dione, and Rhea to the lower right, while Mimas appears as a dim shadow just beneath the rings on the left) has uncovered details previously unimagined by planetary scientists.
A stormy north pole
Cassini captured this view of turbulent clouds on Saturn's north pole from about 166,000 miles above the surface. It was taken on April 26, 2017, the day the spacecraft first dove through the gap between the planet and its rings.
Titan
First Color View of Titan's Surface
This image was returned on January 14, 2005, by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. This is the colored view, following processing to add reflection spectra data, and gives a better indication of the actual color of the surface.
Views of Titan from Different Altitudes
This poster shows a set of images acquired by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe descent imager/spectral radiometer, in the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), at five different altitudes above Titan's surface.
Jupiter
Jupiter Marble
This striking view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and turbulent southern hemisphere was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet. Juno took the three images used to produce this color-enhanced view on Feb 12, 2019.
Tumultuous clouds of Jupiter
This stunning compilation image of Jupiter’s stormy northern hemisphere was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet. Some bright-white clouds can be seen popping up too high altitudes on the right side of Jupiter’s disk.
Neptune
Voyager 2's Historic Neptune Flyby
This picture of Neptune was taken by Voyager 2 less than five days before the probe's closest approach to the planet on Aug. 25, 1989. The picture shows the "Great Dark Spot" a storm in Neptune's atmosphere and the bright, light-blue smudge of clouds that accompanies the storm.
Neptune's bright cloud streaks
This Voyager 2 high-resolution color image, taken 2 hours before the closest approach, provides obvious evidence of vertical relief in Neptune's bright cloud streaks.
Uranus
Uranus Image was taken by Voyager 2
This is a view of Uranus taken by Voyager 2. This image was taken through three color filters and recombined to produce the color image. JPL manages and controls the Voyager project for NASA's Office of Space Science.
Uranus as seen by NASA's Voyager 2
This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 on January 14th, 1986 from a distance of approximately 7.8 million miles ( 12.7 million km ).
Pluto
The Jagged Shores of Pluto’s Highlands
This dramatic image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shows the dark, rugged highlands known as Krun Macula (lower right), which border a section of Pluto’s icy plains. Click on the image and zoom in for maximum detail.
Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
Pluto’s Majestic Mountains, Frozen Plains, and Foggy Hazes: Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon.
The smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) high, including the informally named Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline.
To the right, east of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous but distended atmosphere. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) to Pluto; the scene is 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) wide.
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