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Another planet photographed up close for the first time during the 1970s was Jupiter. This photograph was taken on 2 December 1974 and shows Jupiter, left, and Ganymede, upper right, one of Jupiter's four big moons. It was taken from the spacecraft Pioneer II, about 463,000 miles from the planet's surface.
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As you would expect the Sun is another object that does not escape the studies of scientists and the Stereo spacecraft were created by Nasa with a view to gaining more knowledge of the star. The Stereo spacecraft were launched in 2006 and the mission's plan is to have these two craft on opposite sides of the Sun enabling the whole star to be seen at once. These craft mean that solar activity such as coronal mass ejections and solar flares can be studied in more detail. This image shows an eruptive prominence blasting away from the sun.
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In February 2011 Nasa announced the discovery of a strange new solar system with six planets orbiting around a sun-like star, which they called Keplar-11. This artist's rendering provided by Nasa, shows Kepler-11, with the six planets in orbit. The planet-hunting Kepler space telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibility in the search for alien life, including more than 50 potential planets that initially appear to be in habitable zones.
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This image from the Hubble telescope dates from July 2009 and shows the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the impact feature (dark spot) and 'backsplash' of material from a small object that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated.
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Arguably one of Nasa's biggest success stories has been the Hubble Space Telescope, which has given scientists a whole new look at space and the origins of the universe. Hubble has captured images of various galaxies, including this celestial object that looks like a delicate butterfly.
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These photos of Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, the four largest moons of Jupiter, were taken by the Hubble telescope in October 1995. Located approximatley one-half billion miles away, the moons are so small that, in visible light, they appear as fuzzy disks in the largest ground-based telescopes.
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Several hundred never before seen galaxies are visible in this 'deepest-ever' view of the universe, called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), made with the Hubble telescope in 1996. Besides the classical spiral and elliptical shaped galaxies, there are a variety of other galaxy shapes and colours that are important clues to understanding the evolution of the universe. Some of the galaxies may have formed less that one billion years after the 'big bang.' Representing a narrow 'keyhole' view all the way to the visible horizon of the universe, the HDF image covers a speck of sky 1/30th the diameter of the full moon.
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This image of Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa was taken by the Galileo spacecraft on 7 September 1996. The image on the left shows the approximate natural colours of Europa. The image on the right is a false-colour composite designed to enhance the colour differences in the predominantly frozen crust of Europa. Dark brown areas represent rocky materials and the long, dark lines are fractures in the crust, some of which are more than 1,850 miles long. Galileo was launched by Nasa in 1989 to study Jupiter and its moons.
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This image shows a peculiar system of galaxies known as Arp 194. This interacting group contains several galaxies, along with a 'cosmic fountain' of stars, gas, and dust that stretches over 100,000 light years. The most striking feature of this galaxy troupe is the impressive blue stream of material extending from the northern component. This 'fountain' contains complexes of super star clusters, each one of which may contain dozens of individual young star clusters. The blue colour is produced by the hot, massive stars which dominate the light in each cluster. Overall, the 'fountain' contains many millions of stars.
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The Hubble telescope was responsible for this stunning image. It shows a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.
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The planet Mars has long excited interest among everyone from scientists to writers, thanks to its closeness to Earth and its distinctive red hue. This photograph, taken by the Viking spacecraft on 31 July 1976, prompted much curiosity thanks to its apparent depiction of a human face. Nasa later explained that the image was an optical illusion caused by the illumination angle of the sun, the surface of the planet and the resulting shadows, giving the impression of eyes, nose and mouth.
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This high-quality image from Hubble is so incredibly sharp it could be enlarged to billboard size and still retain all of its stunning details. This Whirlpool Galaxy image showcases the spiral galaxy's classic features, from its curving arms, where new-born stars reside, to its yellowish central core that serves as home for older stars. The graceful, winding arms of this galaxy are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. There is also a small galaxy, known as NGC 5195, which is passing behind the Whirlpool.
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The wonders of space include the planets, and the other planets in our solar system continually attract the attention of space scientists. Our closest neighbour, Mars, has drawn huge amounts of attention and in 2004 Nasa successfully landed twin explorer vehicles on the red planet. One of the explorers, Opportunity, is still functioning, but contact with the other rover, Spirit, was lost in March 2010. This image was captured by Spirit and shows boulders on the surface of Mars. The rock surface facing the rover is similar in appearance to the surface texture on the outside of lava flows on Earth.
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One of the main man-made wonders in space has to be the International Space Station (ISS), which is the largest artificial satellite to have ever orbited Earth. The first stages of the ISS were launched in 1998 and its first human inhabitants moved in, in October 2000. Construction is still on-going and is expected to be completed in 2012, with the ISS operational for another eight years after that. This photograph was taken in 2006, shortly after the space shuttle Atlantis had undocked from the satellite.
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In studying space scientists have found many stunning images throughout the universe, and this one is no exception. In 2005 Hubble captured this image of a galaxy called Messier 104, more commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. The Sombrero is one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is equal in size to 800 billion suns. This spiral galaxy is located 28 million light-years away and is 50,000 light-years across
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The planet Saturn and its many moons have come under scrutiny thanks to the Cassini-Huygens Saturn Probe. This image, captured in 2004, shows the planet and it rings in glorious detail. The most common theory for the formation of Saturn's rings is that they are the remains of a giant, unnamed moon that crashed into the planet. The Cassini probe launched in 1997 and finally entered Saturn's orbit in 2004; last year the mission was extended until 2017.
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In February 2011 Nasa's Stardust mission brought the Stardust spacecraft in close to the Tempel One comet. The Stardust craft flew past the comet, which is half the size of Manhattan during a Valentine's Day rendezvous that scientists hoped would shed light on these icy solar system bodies. At nearest approach, the craft passed within 112 miles of the potato-shaped comet, closer than the original prediction.
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pictured above is one of the former Soviet Union's Vostok spacecraft, the craft that took Yuri Gagarin on the first manned mission into outer space in 1961.
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The Space Shuttle became the first reusable spacecraft, although the US has decided the Shuttle programme will end soon. Here the Shuttle Discovery blasts off on its final mission
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Two years after the first person was sent into space, this photograph was taken by astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper from his spaceship Faith 7, during his 22-orbit earth flight. It dates from 16 May 1963, and was one of the first ever photos to clearly show the curvature of the planet.
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This image shows the Crab Nebula that is one of the most studied objects in the sky, making it a cosmic icon. This mighty cosmic 'generator,' produces energy at the rate of 100,000 suns. This composite image uses data from three of Nasa's observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical images are in yellow and red, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in purple.
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The development of space technology has allowed scientists to look at the full range of celestial objects. This image shows the comet Hartley Two, which was captured by the EPOXI Mission Deep Impact spacecraft. The craft passed within 435 miles of the comet, which is estimated to be 1.4 miles long, and weigh about 280 million metric tons.
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This is a three-dimensional perspective view of the surface of Venus. It is a computer-generated image based on radar data collected by the US Magellan space craft, which was launched in 1989 with the specific purpose of travelling to Venus. This image is combined with colour images from the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 space craft, and was released by Nasa in March 1991.
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On 8 June 1965, humans experienced the wonders of outer space for themselves for the first time. In this photograph, astronaut Ed White moves away from his Gemini 4 capsule as his golden tether unreels from a black bag in which it was kept until he emerged from the spacecraft. During his brief 'spacewalk', White somersaulted away for most of the tether's length, then manouvered back with the aid of an oxygen rocket gun. This picture was taken by White's fellow astronaut, James McDivitt, with a Hasselblad camera.
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In 2006 the Hubble Telescope was focused on Jupiter and for the first time in history, astronomers witnessed the birth of a new red spot on the giant planet, which is located half a billion miles away. The storm is roughly one-half the diameter of its bigger and legendary cousin, the Great Red Spot. Researchers suggest that the new spot may be related to a possible major climate change in Jupiter's atmosphere.
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More history was made on 20 July 1969, when a human being set foot upon the moon for the first time. This photograph shows astronaut Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin Jr. beside an American flag deployed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. The photograph was taken by his fellow astronaut, and the first person to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
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This picture was taken during the Gemini 7 mission of December 1965. It shows waves of clouds along the east flanks of the Andes Mountains casting off an orange glow by the low angle of the sun in the west. One of the astronauts on the flight was James A. Lovell, who later spoke of his feelings on seeing this image of the Earth: 'I understood how insignificant we are, how fragile we are, and how fortunate we are to have a body that will allow us to enjoy the sky and the trees and the water and the vision and the hearing and all that stuff to see what's going around out here. Everything out there is so stark.''
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From the 1970s onwards, our understanding of space broadened to encompass the whole of the solar system. New technology allowed us to see our galatic neighbours in detail for the first time. This picture was taken on 21 September 1974 and shows the south pole of Mercury, the planet nearest to the sun. It was taken shortly after the spacecraft Mariner 10 reached its closest point to the planet.
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Mercury is another planet that has now come under closer scrutiny, thanks to Nasa's Messenger spacecraft. This image shows the Debussy crater on Mercury as well as impact debris and a number of other secondary craters. The Messenger spacecraft was launched in 2004 and completed a complicated series of flybys around Earth and Venus, that allowed it to slow sufficiently to be able to enter Mercury' orbit without being pulled past by the Sun's gravity.
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Humans had long gazed upon the moon from the Earth, but on Christmas Eve 1968 they first saw the Earth from the point of view of the moon. This photograph was taken by astronauts on Apollo 8.
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