Description Mariner 10's first image of Mercury. During its flight, Mariner 10's trajectory brought it behind the lighted hemisphere of Mercury, where this image was taken, in order to acquire important measurements with other instruments. This picture was acquired from a distance of 3,340,000 miles (5,380,000 km) from the surface of Mercury. The diameter of Mercury (3,031 miles; 4,878 km) is about 1/3 that of Earth. Images of Mercury were acquired in two steps, an inbound leg (images acquired before passing into Mercury's shadow) and an outbound leg (after exiting from Mercury's shadow). More than 2300 useful images of Mercury were taken, both moderate resolution (3-20 km/pixel) color and high resolution (better than 1 km/pixel) black and white coverage.
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Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
Image Number: PIA00437
Date: March 24, 1974
Tags: NASA Mercury Mariner 10 1974 planets
Description Taken only minutes after Mariner 10 made its closest approach to the planet Mercury on March 29, 1974, this is one of the highest resolution pictures obtained during the mission. Craters as small as 150 meters (500 feet) across can be seen. The picture, taken from a distance of about 5,900 kilometers (3,700 miles), measures 50 by 40 kilometers 31 by 25 miles). The relatively level surface contrasts with the abundant relief seen in some close-up views on the opposite side of the planet. The long, narrow area of hills and scarps to the left resembles ridges in the mare of Earth's moon. Abundant craters in various stages of degradation dot the surface.
The Mariner 10 mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon.
NASA Media Usage Guidelines
Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Image Number: PIA02961
Date: March 29, 1974
Tags: NASA Mercury Craters 1974 planets
Description This picture of Venus was captured by the Mariner 10 spacecraft during its approach to the planet in early 1974. Taken with the spacecraft's imaging system using an ultraviolet filter, the picture has been color enhanced to simulate Venus's natural color as the human eye would see it. Although the planet closest to the Earth in size and distance from the Sun, Venus is perpetually blanketed by a thick veil of clouds high in carbon dioxide; its surface temperature approaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Launched on November 3, 1973, atop an Atlas Centaur rocket, Mariner 10 flew by Venus on February 5, 1974. It then went on to an encounter with Mercury, thus becoming the first spacecraft ever to fly by more than one planet.
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Credit: NASA
Image Number: MSFC-8915499
Date: January 1974
Tags: NASA Venus Mariner 10 1974 planets
Description This is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows our home as a planetary disk. Because Earth and the Moon are closer to the Sun than Mars, they exhibit phases, just as the Moon, Venus, and Mercury do when viewed from Earth. As seen from Mars by the NASA Mars Global Surveyor on May 8, 2003, at 13:00 GMT (9:00 a.m. EDT), Earth and the Moon appeared in the evening sky. This Earth/Moon image has been specially processed to allow both Earth (with an apparent magnitude of -2.5) and the much darker Moon (with an apparent magnitude of 0.9) to be visible together. The bright area at the top of the image of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern North America. Below that, a darker area includes Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. The bright feature near the center right of the crescent Earth consists of clouds over northern South America. The image also shows the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Moon, since the Moon was on the far side of Earth as viewed from Mars. The slightly lighter tone of the lower portion of the image of the Moon results from the large and conspicuous ray system associated with the crater Tycho.
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Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
Image Number: PIA04531
Date: May 8, 2003
Tags: NASA Earth Moon Mars planets
Description The Television InfraRed Observational Satellite (TIROS) 1 was the first weather satellite. Launched into a polar orbit equipped with two TV cameras, TIROS 1 was operational for only 78 days but demonstrated the feasibility of monitoring planet Earth's cloud cover and weather patterns from space. TIROS satellites eventually began continuous coverage in 1962 and enabled accurate worldwide weather forecasts and alerts. Above is the first TIROS TV image, taken from an altitude of about 700 kilometers. Crude by contemporary standards, it represents the beginning of what is still one of the most important continuing applications of space technology. This was the first photo of Earth from a weather satellite.
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Credit: NASA
Image Number: 324271main_tiros_full
Date: April 1, 1960
Tags: NASA Earth Space 1960 TIROS planets