#Ancient space images series#

In 2003, NASA launched the twin robotic geologists Spirit and Opportunity, and the following January the two rovers landed on opposite sides of Mars. Those so-inclined have until December 1 to nominate and vote on other potential names via the New Horizons website.

#Ancient space images series#

New Horizons was designed with extra hydrazine fuel onboard to investigate potential Kuiper belt objects (KBO) beyond Pluto if they were detected nearby. In 2014, three such KBOs were discovered all with possible flyby dates in late 2018 or in 2019 and last year, the craft received the green light to journey even farther into the Kuiper belt. The probe is now en route to an object known as (486958) 2014 MU69 and - seeing as this series of numbers and letters isn’t the most communicable of names - NASA has enlisted mankind to come up with an alternate monicker. This mission was a major success but the probe was far from finished faring the final frontier. As part of the mission, the probe performed a six-month flyby reconnaissance study of the dwarf planet and its moons, including the closest approach of Pluto to date. The New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of Pluto after a more than nine-year voyage to the dwarf planet. So without further ado, here are 60 of the best space photos to help you put our Pale Blue Dot in perspective. From the early, grainy images of the Martian surface sent from the Viking 1 lander to humanity’s first close-up of Pluto’s moon, these glimpses of our celestial neighbors and those light-years away fill us with a sense of wonder. Luckily for us, some of the most sophisticated imaging technology ever is currently making its way through our solar system, transmitting breathtaking images of the final frontier back to Earth for our gawking pleasure. It lets those of us who never fully achieved our childhood dream of becoming an astronaut virtually tour the ISS and even peer out at a panoramic Earth from the Cupola bay. While most of us will probably never escape Earth’s gravity, a joint partnership between the International Space Station (ISS) and Google recently unveiled an interactive Space View platform - a variation of the Google Street View program. In pure 21st-century fashion, at least one of these rovers can’t seem to resist the occasional selfie. We have rendezvoused with asteroids, sailed through the rings of Saturn, and quite literally roved robotic marathons on the red planet. While many of these far-out programs never left the launchpad - let alone the drawing board - plenty of pioneering probes have blasted through our atmosphere, through the outer reaches of our solar system, and, at least on one occasion, drifted into interstellar space. Since then, space agencies around the globe have proposed bizarre missions to whet our curiosities in the name of science. Lesser-known “spots” in our solar system.Blue skies on the red planet - a “curious” sunset indeed.The potential for extraterrestrial life.Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn’s Enceladus.