65 Absolutely Breaktaking Historical Pictures That Will Completely And Totally Change Your Perspective On The Universe

1.

This is a picture of Earth from ONE HOUR ago:

2.

And this is a picture of Mars that was taken THIS WEEK:

3.

This is how big Earth is compared to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot:

4.

Speaking of which, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is shrinking:

5.

And while we’re talkin’ Jupiter, this is what Jupiter would look like if it were as close as the moon:

6.

This is what the Korean penisula — North Korea on top, South Korea on bottom – looks like from space:

7.

In 2001, there was a huge dust storm on Mars that obscured the whole planet from the outside:

8.

This is what Florida looks like from space:

9.

And this is what the Himalayas look like from International Space Station:

10.

This is the last image NASA’s InSight rover sent from Mars before running out of power at the end of its mission last December:

11.

While we’re on the subject, this is the last picture the Mars Opportunity rover took:

12.

This is what a volcano erupting looks like from space:

13.

This, to scale, is how far apart the Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are:

14.

This is how big Earth is compared to Saturn:

15.

And this is how big the Moon and Pluto’s moon Charon are compared to the Earth:

16.

This is what Antarctica looks like from space:

17.

This is what the inside of a 1970s spacesuit looked like:

18.

You can see volcanic eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io from space:

19.

Speaking of IO, here’s a picture of one of the moon’s most unique mountains, named “Steeple Mountain:”

20.

This is what the Pacific Ocean looks like from space:

21.

This is a picture of Pluto and its moons taken in 2006…

22.

And this is a much, much clearer picture of Pluto taken only a decade later, in 2015:

23.

This is what the Space Shuttle Endeavour looked like as it left Earth and traveled into orbit:

24.

This is what a typhoon looks like from space:

25.

This picture was taken shortly after David Scott and Neil Armstrong’s Gemini 8 space capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean:

26.

This is what the United Kingdom looked like from space during the winter of 2010:

27.

This is what a sunset looks like from space:

28.

On Feb. 7, 1984, Bruce McCandless II performed the first-ever untethered space walk, and folks, it looks absolutely terrifying:

29.

This is a picture of the ice mountains of Pluto as seen from the New Horizons space probe:

30.

This is what New Zealand looks like from space:

31.

This is how big an average-sized comet is compared to Paris:

32.

This is a REAL picture of the moon crossing in front of the Earth:

33.

This is what a solar eclipse looks like from space:

34.

In 1972, astronaut Charles Duke left behind a picture of his family on the moon’s surface. It’s been there ever since:

35.

This is how big everyone’s favorite telescope, the Hubble Telescope, is:

36.

This picture, taken in 1946, is one of the first images of Earth ever taken from space:

37.

And this is the first picture of Earth from the moon, taken in 1966 by Lunar Orbiter 1:

38.

The Mars rovers are way, way bigger than you thought they were:

39.

This is what a piece of the moon and a piece of Mars looks like:

40.

These are two of the earliest known photographs of Saturn and Jupiter, taken in the 19th century:

41.

You’re probably familiar with the “Face on Mars,” an image of a formation on Mars from the 1970s that launched a million conspiracy theories…

42.

…well, this is what a much less blurry, much more recent photograph of that same “face” looks like:

43.

Mars is home to the tallest mountain in the solar system, the 72,000-foot-tall Olympus Mons:

44.

Speaking of Mars, this is what a sunset looks like on that there planet:

45.

There’s a bunch of trash left by humans on the moon. In fact, if you really want to know, there are 96 bags of human waste on that big pie in the sky:

46.

You might recognize Eugene from this iconic picture of his moon walk:

47.

NASA recently captured one of the clearest pictures of Jupiter yet:

48.

This is the Willamette meteorite, the largest meteorite that’s ever been found in the United States:

49.

And this is the Hoba meteorite, the largest meteorite on Earth:

50.

Way out on the edge of the Solar System is this big ol’ hunk of rock called Ultima Thule, Arrokoth, or (486958) 2014 MU69 — the farthest thing from Earth humanity has ever “explored up close“:

51.

Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first “space selfie” while on a spacewalk in 1966:

52.

This is what the moon looks like in the Northern Hemisphere…

53.

…and this is what the moon looks like in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s upside down:

54.

This is what Ireland looks like from space:

55.

And finally, this is the statement President Jimmy Carter wrote and put aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft, intended for any aliens the probe might encounter:

56.

This is Eugene Cernan, who is, as of 2023, the last man to ever walk on the moon:

57.

Finally, let’s end by looking at the TRUE color of every planet in our solar system. This is what color Mercury really is:

58.

And this is what Venus looks like to the naked eye:

59.

Here’s where you are, Earth, in true color:

60.

This is what Mars looks like in real color:

61.

And this is what Jupiter looks like without any filters:

62.

Here’s Saturn in all its true-color glory:

63.

And this is Uranus in real color:

64.

Here’s Neptune in true color:

65.

And, finally, here’s our little dwarf planet warrior, Pluto, in real color: