Moon Gallery

First Picture of the Earth and Moon in a Single Frame

This picture of the Earth and Moon in a single frame, the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft, was recorded September 18, 1977, but NASAs Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles (11.66 million kilometers) from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager. In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken. The photo was made from three images taken through color filters, then processed by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Because the Earth is many times brighter than the Moon, the Moon was artificially brightened by a factor of three relative to the Earth by computer enhancement so that both bodies would show clearly in the prints. Voyager 1 was launched September 5, 1977 and Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977. JPL is responsible for the Voyager mission

© NASA

Saturns rings, Cassini image

Saturn's rings, Cassini image. The rings consist of particles of nearly pure water ice and meteoric dust and span almost 300, 000 kilometres. The largest gap in the rings is the Cassini Division, which separates the A (outer) and B (inner) rings. The smaller gap within the A ring is the Encke Gap. Pandora, one of Saturn's moons, is seen as a minute speck above the A ring at upper left. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched in 1997 to investigate Saturn, its rings and its moons. This image was taken by Cassini's wide-angle camera on the 13th April 2007 at a distance of 1.8 million kilometres from Saturn

© NASA/JPL/SSI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Catalan Atlas, 14th century

Catalan Atlas, 14th century. The 6-page Catalan Atlas (1375) was produced on vellum by the Jewish cartographer Abraham Cresques. It was commissioned by the rulers of the Kingdom of Aragon (north-eastern Spain). Two pages are on cosmography, and four on geography. This page shows the five known planets (plus the Moon and Sun) orbiting the Earth, the zodiac, moon phases, calendars, and the four seasons. The text is in Catalan. This version is a facsimile (exact reproduction) produced in 1959 by the Spanish scholars Joan Vernet and David Romano. The facsimile pages have been illuminated by hand in colour and gold leaf

© LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY