The History of Space Photography

Photograph of Great Comet of 1882, Nov. 14, 1882 (Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa).

First view of the Earth from the moon, photographed by Lunar Orbiter 1. The spacecraft was about 730 miles above a portion of the moon not visible from our planet. Aug. 23, 1966.

A photograph of Earth taken from Apollo 17, 1972.

A view from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite of nearly the entire heavens in false color.

Entire surface of Venus from Magellan, which was in orbit Aug. 10, 1990, to Oct. 12, 1994.

Glacier melt on Iceland, from 1973 to 2000.

Uncatalogued dark cloud in Scorpius, Australian Astronomical Observatory, 2000-10.

A high-phase-angle Saturn image, which has Earth visible in its rings, taken from Cassini on Sept. 15, 2006.

This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, came from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

Photograph of farthest away and oldest galaxies, including one 12.8 billion light-years away from Hubble Ultra Deep Field and Spitzer Space Telescope.

The Helix Nebula from the Spitzer Space Telescope, Feb. 12, 2007.

Opposing jets from supermassive black hole in galaxy Centaurus A by Chandra Space Telescope.

Lakes of liquid methane on Saturn's moon Titan, taken from Cassini on July 22, 2006

(via L.A.Times)