NASA ’s been able to accomplish a hell of a luck in its relatively shortsighted 58 - year history . Thanks to a braintrust of engineers and a billion - buck budget , it ’s sent men to the moon , rovers to Mars , probes into mystifying space , and even Matthew McConaughey into some weird wormhole . But besides all the groundbreaking discoveries about the universe and mankind , one of NASA ’s coolest donation by far has start out to be its collection of cool - as - hell space photos . These are some of our faves .
“Gumdrop Meets Spider” (Apollo 9 modules docking)
March 6th , 1969
Buzz Aldrin on the moon, shot by Neil Armstrong
July 20th , 1969
Apollo 11 lunar module ascent, shot by astronaut Michael Collins
July 21st , 1969
Apollo 13’s safe splashdown in the South Pacific
April 17th , 1970
Mars' Utopian Plain from Viking 2
September 3rd , 1976
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as viewed by Voyager 1
February 1979
Robert Stewart on a tether-less spacewalk outside Shuttle Challenger
February 12th , 1984
Neptune captured by Voyager 2
1989
James Newman outside Shuttle Discovery, Earth in the background
September 16th , 1993
“Nursery of New Stars” (a massive nebula captured by the Hubble Space Telescope)
January 17th , 1995
The Ring Nebula captured by the Hubble Space Telescope
October 1st , 1998
Hubble’s sharpest view of the Orion Nebula
Between 2004 and 2005
A rare “triple eclipse” of three of Jupiter’s moons
March 28th , 2004
International Space Station, as seen from Space Shuttle Discovery
March 25th , 2009
Aurora australis (the “southern lights”) captured by the ISS while passing over the Indian Ocean
September 17th , 2011
Rover Curiosity’s self-portrait on Mars' Mount Sharp
August 5th , 2015
Galaxy cluster IDCS J1426
January 7th , 2016
Haze layers above Pluto captured by New Horizons
March 17th , 2016
bless up herefor our casual Thrillist electronic mail , and get your repair of the serious in intellectual nourishment / drunkenness / sport .
Joe McGauleyis a fourth-year author for Thrillist . He would make a low-down spaceman .
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
Flickr/NASA on The Commons
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA/CXC/Univ of Missouri/M.Brodwin et al; NASA/STScI; JPL/CalTech
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
