40 Of The Most Eye-Opening Photos From NASA’s Perseverance Mission To Mars

NASA’s Perseverance mission to Mars finally landed on the Red Planet in February 2021. And the wait has definitely been worth it. Now established on the planet’s surface, the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter it took along have been transmitting astonishing images back to their home planet. Here are 40 of the most amazing photos – they’re literally out of this world!

40. Strange rocks

This fascinating array of rocks – captured by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera – apparently covers an area about 10 feet wide. We wonder what could be hiding there... The image itself is from the 66th Martian day of the mission. A solar day on Mars is called a sol, and each reportedly lasts for 39 minutes and 22 seconds longer than the 24 hours we’re accustomed to on our planet. 

39. Ingenuity’s first flight

Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera also caught the first flight of the Ingenuity helicopter. And this was a history-maker. That short spin through the Mars atmosphere was the first time a controlled aircraft had flown on Mars or any celestial body other than Earth. We bet the folks at NASA were overjoyed!

38. Ready to drop

The Ingenuity helicopter was transported to Mars inside the Perseverance rover. And once Perseverance had safely landed, it was time to let Ingenuity fly. Here it is in the process of being dropped. Those four legs – which were folded away – are now touching the surface of the Red Planet. Exciting!

37. Mars from above

The Ingenuity helicopter is also equipped with a color camera, and that enabled it to capture an eye-catching shot of Mars from above. The photo was taken from a height of 17 feet as Ingenuity flew away from the rover. And yet again, this moment made history. NASA has said of the photo, “This is the first color image of the Martian surface taken by an aerial vehicle while it was aloft.” 

36. 11 million Earthlings

See that plate at the bottom right? It’s pretty special. According to NASA, it has three computer chips in it with the names of 11 million humans stored on them. They all applied to be part of the agency’s Send Your Name to Mars initiative, which invited people to register to travel to the Red Planet – well, sort of!

35. Drilling

One of Perseverance’s many pieces of kit is a drill. This can burrow down into the surface of Mars and extract cores of rock stored in tubes. And one day, NASA hopes, a future mission will not only travel to Mars, but it will also fly back to Earth. When that happens, the spacecraft will deliver the cores to scientists on our planet for thorough analysis. Perhaps then they may find evidence of ancient microbial life!

34. Landing

The crowning glory of NASA’s entire Perseverance mission was the moment of landing. If that went wrong, bang went the whole project and years of work. But on February 18, 2021, things went just about as smoothly as in this artist’s illustration. The Perseverance rover was on Mars’ surface, and she was entirely intact – ready to start scientific research and exploration. 

33. Testing Perseverance

This is part of the painstaking checking and testing that Perseverance had to go through in readiness for her flight to Mars. The engineer is using a so-called solar intensity probe to calculate how much sunlight will hit various parts of the rover. And this information allowed the scientific team to assess how light would impact the vehicle when it was on Mars. 

32. Octavia E. Butler Landing

Once Perseverance had landed in the Jezero Crater, NASA folks decided to name the touch-down spot. A tiny yellow star gives the precise location where the rover settled onto the Martian surface, and this will now forever be known as the Octavia E. Butler Landing. It’s a fitting memorial for the sci-fi legend, don’t you think? 

31. WATSON

The scientific instrument WATSON naturally has a partner called SHERLOC. That’s nerdy humor for you! WATSON is a camera capable of taking detailed close-up shots of Martian rocks. SHERLOC, on the other hand, collects tiny pieces of this rock for chemical analysis. And working together, the two are looking for evidence of organic molecules. This includes the specific minerals that are the basis for life on Earth. 

30. First drive test

This shot shows Perseverance making its first cautious drive on the surface of Mars. Taking things easy, the rover covered a distance of just over 21 feet without mishap. And a NASA press release quoted engineer Anais Zarifian, who said, “This was our first chance to ‘kick the tires’ and take Perseverance out for a spin. The rover’s six-wheel-drive responded superbly.” Good to know!

29. Celebrations

No wonder these NASA staffers are jubilant. They’ve just seen their baby – the Perseverance rover – land safely on the Red Planet! It’s the culmination of years of painstaking work, and everything went to plan. It took seven months for the spacecraft to travel to Mars from Earth. After that, Perseverance spent just seven minutes descending through the planet’s atmosphere before touching down in the Jezero Crater. 

28. Perseverance landing

This shot shows Perseverance dangling beneath a sky crane that lowered it safely to the surface. According to National Geographic, the craft was traveling at more than 12,000 miles per hour when it hit Mars’ atmosphere. Naturally, that had to be slowed right down! The atmosphere lowered the speed to 1,000 mph, and a parachute decreased that further to 200 mph. Finally, the jetpack-powered sky crane gently dropped the rover at its destination before flying off and crash-landing at a safe distance. 

27. Blast-off

Here’s the Perseverance mission launching from Cape Canaveral on July 30, 2020. And the whole thing wouldn’t have been possible without a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. One of these devices first propelled a NASA mission to the Red Planet when it successfully flew the 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter there. Overall, Perseverance was the fifth trip to Mars powered by an Atlas V. 

26. First image

This is the very first image of Mars that Perseverance beamed back to mission control! And the shot was taken by one of the vehicle’s hazard avoidance cameras – hazcams for short. Perseverance is equipped with six of those – three to the rear and three at the front.

25. Rover testing

White-suited engineers and scientists are working in a so-called clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s December 2019, and they’re giving Perseverance its very first driving test. The NASA staffers have rigged up a crude but effective route to check the rover’s systems and mobility. We hope it passed with flying colors!

24. Family portrait

NASA has dubbed this diagram the “family portrait.” And the parade starts from the left with the very first rover to get to Mars. Sojourner was part of the Pathfinder mission that launched back in 1996, and it landed successfully on the Red Planet the following year. 

23. Ingenuity on Mars

You may be tempted to call Ingenuity a drone, but NASA prefers to call it a helicopter. In any case, it’s a groundbreaking piece of kit – the first to have the capability of remotely controlled flight on another planet. The 4-pound device was secreted in the innards of Perseverance, and it was released a few days after the landing. 

22. The instruments

This diagram gives a comprehensive guide to Perseverance’s many scientific instruments. And the impressive array of gadgets includes the Mastcam-Z – a camera that can take both stereoscopic and panoramic photos. There’s also the SuperCam, which is an instrument capable of chemical analysis and image-making. It can even remotely detect signs of possible ancient organic remains on the planet’s surface. But, sadly, it hasn’t yet spotted aliens...

21. Parachute

It’s this parachute that decreased Perseverance’s speed as it plummeted towards the surface of Mars. We’re seeing it from a camera mounted on the spacecraft’s backshell. But the parachute hides a secret. The red and white patches pattern is arranged in code, and when decrypted the message apparently reads “Dare mighty things.” 

20. Preparing Perseverance

Perseverance’s first journey wasn’t actually to Mars. It was aboard a Boeing C-17 transport plane from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After construction in Pasadena, the spacecraft landed at Kennedy in February 2020 for final tests and preparation before its July launch. Here, we see NASA personnel giving the vehicle an initial once-over. 

19. Perseverance rover

This is an artist’s illustration of Perseverance on Mars. And as you can see, the vehicle is positively bursting with scientific equipment! The rover’s main mission is to hunt for signs of ancient organisms preserved in the Red Planet’s rocks. It will also take a raft of measurements with an eye to possible human missions to Mars. 

18. The rover’s complexity

And this detailed artist’s illustration of Perseverance gives an excellent idea of the vehicle’s complexity. Much of the scientific kit fitted onto the rover is there to accomplish the mission’s main objective: the hunt for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. The method used for this search basically boils down to analyzing Martian soil and rocks.

17. Jezero Crater

This illustration shows the rim of the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed in February 2021. The crater is a whopping 28 miles across, and it lies on the western limits of an area called Isidis Planitia – not far from Mars’ equator. NASA picked this spot because it’s more likely to host the remains of ancient microbial life. 

16. Ingenuity’s rotors

Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera captured this shot of Ingenuity, now freed from its traveling position inside the rover. And you can clearly see the helicopter’s carbon-fiber rotors. At their full extent they span nearly four feet, and at top speed they turn at just over 40 revolutions per second. That’s pretty fast!

15. Mont Mercou

Here’s a view looking down into Gale Crater, but it’s not one taken from Perseverance. You see, NASA actually has another rover in operation on the Red Planet! It’s called Curiosity, and this photo was captured on Martian day 3,090 of Curiosity’s mission on the planet. The rover touched down on Mars in August 2012 in the Gale Crater. 

14. The fourth flight

This image of Ingenuity on its fourth flight was captured by one of Perseverance’s six hazcams. Yes, the helicopter is there, but in this pic it’s just a speck against the background of mountains! As their name suggests, hazcams help the rover avoid obstacles such as boulders and ditches. They also play a role in documenting key moments in the mission like this Ingenuity flight. 

13. Curiosity

Curiosity’s mastcam took this picture of the rover’s own tracks, left as it traversed the Martian soil through a feature called the Dingo Gap. The rover arrived nine years before Perseverance’s landing, but it’s still in operation and sending images back to Earth. And to give you an idea of Curiosity’s size, those two tire tracks are about 9 feet apart. 

12. Casting a shadow

NASA has been running a public vote to pick the photo of the week from Perseverance. And this shot was the winner in week four of the mission. One of the navcams – the right camera, to be precise – captured the moment when Perseverance’s robotic arm cast its shadow on the Mars surface. 

11. Rover on Mars

Described by NASA as a concept illustration, this image shows a view of Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Those objects that look like discarded pipes? They’re in fact tubes that contain pieces of soil and rock. The plan is that one day a mission will fly to Mars, retrieve these samples and return them to Earth for detailed analysis. 

10. Celebrating Ingenuity

Here, the folks at NASA celebrate Ingenuity’s initial flight. It became the first-ever aircraft to fly on Mars, in fact, and that was no small achievement! You see, the atmosphere on Mars is much thinner than on Earth – just about 1 percent of our planet’s by volume. That means the scientists weren’t even sure a helicopter would work in those conditions.

9. Santa Cruz

This hill is called Santa Cruz, and it lies within the Jezero Crater. You can just about see the crater’s rim, too, in the distance. And Santa Cruz is actually around one and a half miles away from the rover in this shot. It was taken on the 68th Martian day of the Perseverance mission.

8. Ingenuity’s solar panel

This is a close-up of the solar panel Ingenuity depends upon for its power. And without it, things could go very wrong. At a February 2021 news conference, NASA project manager MiMi Aung pointed out some of the difficulties Ingenuity faces. She said, “This little 4-pounder has to survive the cold frigid nights of Mars.” To stay warm, it also has to “garner energy from the Sun through its solar panels to charge its battery.” It has to fly, too, of course! 

7. “Secret doorway”

The NASA Mars missions have attracted their fair share of conspiracy theories. One was even reported in a British newspaper! In 2020 the Daily Express suggested that Mars CuriosityPerseverance’s predecessor rover – had captured an image of ancient ruins on the Red Planet. We’ll leave you to decide whether that seems likely or not...

6. Rafael Navarro Mountain

This image was taken in April 2021 by the Mars Curiosity rover – still operating on the Red Planet when Perseverance arrived. And the hill you see in the photo? It’s been dubbed Rafael Navarro Mountain. This honors the memory of astrobiologist Rafael Navarro-González, who worked on the Curiosity mission. Sadly, he passed away in January 2021. 

5. Ingenuity flying away

Perseverance took this shot of Ingenuity with one of the three hazcams attached to its rear. And you ought to know the secret behind the helicopter. In February 2021 mechanical engineer Josh Ravich explained that Ingenuity was “just a technology demonstration.” Yes, the point of getting it to Mars was just to find out whether an aircraft could operate in the thin atmosphere. Looks like it can!

4. “Bible” on Mars

The NASA missions to Mars are amazing enough in their own right, but that doesn’t appear to be enough for some people. Not for Scott C. Waring, anyway! He’s claimed to be able to see an ancient Bible in this shot taken by the Curiosity rover. 

3. Descending

This illustration gives a clear view of Perseverance’s descent towards Mars’ surface. As Perseverance entered the planet’s atmosphere, it split from its cruise rocket. Then the rover was left attached to its descent stage, which NASA has called a kind of “jetpack.” The descent stage is equipped with rockets that ignite to slow down the spacecraft’s speed. And at about 66 feet from the surface, this section lowered Perseverance down using special cables. 

2. The deck

This selfie taken by one of Perseverance’s navcams gives us a bird’s eye view of the rover’s deck. Well, sort of – there are definitely no birds on Mars! And one of the sophisticated instruments on show here is the planetary instrument for X-ray lithochemistry, or PIXL for short. It’s the boxy white object at the top of this pic, and it uses imaging to remotely analyze the chemistry of rocks. That way, we can hopefully find evidence of ancient biological life. 

1. Ingenuity at rest

The public chose this photo as one of the Perseverance mission’s images of the week. And rightly so, as it’s really cool! Perseverance’s rear right hazcam captured Ingenuity on Martian day 43 of the mission, wowing even a seasoned NASA scientist. Josh Ravich – an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – said at a news conference, “To see [Ingenuity] there, getting there finally, it's kind of surreal still.” 

It’s also kind of surreal to see Earth from thousands of miles away. Yes, right this moment, there could be a camera in outer space snapping a picture of our planet. And we’re lucky enough to have some of these incredible shots – ones just as special as anything taken by Perseverance.

40. Nighttime in Paris

Paris: the city of love. Year on year the place welcomes countless loved-up couples on romantic breaks. And judging by this NASA picture from space, it looks just as wondrous from up above. Just look at the bright lights at the snaking bend of the River Seine that runs through the city. C’est magnifique!

39. Above the Caribbean

As beautiful as the Caribbean is, we reckon it’s never looked as alluring as it does from this 2020 image from outer space. The pic was snapped by someone on the International Space Station, taken from a specific part of the base known as the Cupola. Note how much lighter the water of the Bahamas is compared to the darker open oceans.

38. Cloudy desert

From an astonishing 259 miles up in the sky, this stunning photograph was snapped on February 13, 2020. It shows a mass of white and slightly menacing clouds whirling above the northern part of the Sahara Desert. It sure looks beautiful from above, but you probably wouldn’t want to be caught up in it.

37. Heading home

This photo’s a real window into the extraordinary life of an astronaut – and it happens to show an actual window on the SpaceX Crew’s Dragon vehicle. Yes, the pic was snapped as the astronaut headed back to Earth after saying goodbye to the ISS. They’d just finished up with the SpaceX Demo-2 mission, which incidentally was the first operation to fire humans to space from America in almost a decade. The land visible out the window, though, is eastern Kazakhstan.

36. Incoming crew

When NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off on May 30, 2020, it was a significant occasion. That’s because they were aboard the first ever commercially constructed and administered spacecraft. In this astonishing photograph you can see the launch vehicle on its way to the ISS over southwest Turkey.

35. A tumultuous Jupiter

This incredible photograph of Jupiter’s turbulent northern areas was captured on February 17, 2020, during NASA’s Juno flyby mission. Note the extensive, slender bands running through the center of the pic, from the top to the bottom. These are what we call haze particles, but not much is known about what they’re composed of or what causes them to emerge.

34. Phytoplankton surge

When you look at this photograph – taken on July 26, 2020 – what’s the first thing that stands out? For us, it’s the sizable light blue area in the middle of the picture, which is surrounded by the dark blue ocean. So, what exactly is that? The answer is phytoplankton, which are floating plant-like organisms that require sunshine and nutrition in order to survive.

33. An enchanting oasis

This stunning picture was taken on Landsat 8 back on March 7, 2020. It shows the Ili River Delta and the deserts of southeastern Kazakhstan. Amazingly, this is actually a genuinely colored photograph. Look at the turquoise waters of Lake Balkhash and the disintegrating ice, all situated beside those beige deserts. Beautiful.

32. Fires and smoke

Here’s an image of southeastern Australia, that was snapped in natural color on January 4, 2020. That was a bleak date when extreme fires were unleashed across the Land Down Under. The photograph was acquired by a NASA satellite called Aqua, which utilized a gizmo known as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer.

31. A parched river

This false-colored photograph was captured from Landsat 8 back on July 3, 2020. It shows South America’s Paraná River running near the Argentinian port city of Rosario. The pic was snapped after a stretch of extremely warm weather, which saw the river’s water drop to the lowest level recorded in almost five decades.

30. Oh, chute!

Here we have the Soyuz MS-16 reentry capsule, landing in the vast central Asian country of Kazakhstan. On board were members of the ISS Expedition 63 team, which included Russian cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin, as well as NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy. The craft landed a little to the southeast of a community called Zhezqazghan.

29. Moon shadow

We had a long time to wait for a total solar eclipse in 2020, but it finally happened on December 14. Still, you would’ve struggled to see the event if you weren’t somewhere between the South Atlantic and equatorial Pacific. Luckily for the rest of us, though, NASA was on hand to capture it from outer space. It’s that ominous black cloud at the south of the planet.

28. Night glow

The Persian Gulf is an important part of the world, not least for its copious energy resources. It’s also home to some major cities, whose lights can be seen glistening in this pic. The brightest places can be seen along the southern and western coastlines, which is where the likes of Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai are situated.

27. Overwhelmed by floods

This photo taken from Landsat 8 on January 27, 2020, shows the damage that torrential rains from a number of tropical disturbances did to Madagascar. From this perspective, we can take note of the widespread flooding that took numerous lives in the northern part of the island. You can clearly see the sediment-filled rivers swollen out of their banks.

26. Gleaming Great Lakes

In late January 2020 the East Coast of America and Canada was hit by a cold snap that resulted in an influx of snow and ice. The remarkable extent of it can be seen in this photograph taken on January 20, 2020, from a satellite known as Suomi NPP. Notice how the snow blanketed the land surrounding the Great Lakes, while their dark and colorful waters could still be seen clearly.

25. Meteor-watching

This astonishing image was taken by astronaut Christina Koch from the International Space Station on January 4, 2020. It shows the annual Quadrantids meteor shower in action, a remarkable spectacle in which pieces of an asteroid known as 2003 EH1 zoom past the Earth. Marvel at the stunning color of the green light and the glowing asteroid over Edmonton, Canada.

24. Ash-damaged island

That island in the middle of this image looks a little like something that broke off the Moon, doesn’t it? Well, in actual fact, it’s a volcanic islet in the Philippines, home to the active Taal Volcano. The dusty brown color is an after-effect of the volcano’s eruption, as the once green and fertile land was covered in ash. Landsat 8 took the photograph of Taal back on March 11, 2020 – and what an image it is.

23. The gorgeous colors of fall

Who doesn’t love fall? Well, those beautiful autumn colors are on full display in this epic photograph from space. An astronaut on the International Space Station armed with a Nikon D5 digital camera took this picture on October 14, 2020. That’s Canada’s capital city of Ottawa below. Note the Rideau Canal and Ottawa and Gatineau Rivers, which are clearly visible in the image.

22. Red Popocatépetl

Here’s another one you won’t believe is on planet Earth. But this red landscape is actually a false-colored image of the Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico, located some 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. It’s an active stratovolcano that’s been erupting on and off since 2005. The infrared photograph was taken on February 25, 2020, on NASA’s Terra satellite, and it shows the volcanic plume venting from the summit crater.

21. Mesmerizing Lake Skadar

That turquoise and darker blue pool that looks like some kind of abyss is, in fact, Lake Skadar, the biggest lake in the Balkans. The eye-catching swirls in the photograph are the result of sediment being moved around because of melting snow and water rushing off from nearby mountains. The remarkable image of the lake – which lies between Montenegro and Albania – was captured back on February 21, 2020, from the International Space Station.

20. A watery day

Believe it or not, this is actually a naturally colored image of a place on Earth – not a picture of Mars or Jupiter. The photograph was captured on February 9, 2021, from Landsat 8. It shows Lake Lefroy in the west of Australia. The lake and the surrounding area had been hit by heavy rains at the time, providing it with a really eerie look.

19. An astronaut’s perspective

Imagine being this astronaut, looking down on Earth from the International Space Station. What a privilege it must be to witness our vast planet from so far above. This photograph was taken on June 21, 2020, and it depicts an annular eclipse that formed across much of Asia and Africa thanks to a new Moon lining up with the Sun. The image shows us China being covered by the shadow of the Moon.

18. Marveling at Mogadishu

Mogadishu is perhaps best known to Americans as the place where a Black Hawk helicopter went down in 1993. Nonetheless, the city in Somalia is a crucial port in Africa where over two million individuals live. This photograph was snapped from the International Space Station as it moved above the Horn of Africa. Notice the colorful sand dunes surrounding the built-up city area and the green agricultural fields further down from the coast.

17. Rosy-colored lake

No, that isn’t a giant watermelon on the Earth’s surface. In actual fact, it’s a crater lake in India’s central west region known as Lonar Lake. On the left, we see the lake as it usually is, defined by a greenish color. On the right, we see it after it bizarrely changed color to pink in 2020. Why it did so remains unclear, even to NASA’s boffins.

16. Frozen Finland thaws

This image of northern Finland was captured from NASA’s Earth Observatory on May 25, 2020. It focuses on the community of Ivalo and its surrounding areas, which had endured atypically warm weather around that time. This meant that the record amounts of snow and ice that had previously arrived in the winter started to melt at an astonishing rate.

15. Landing in Kazakhstan

It looks a bit cramped in there, fellas. That’s Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner photographed inside the Soyuz MS-16 reentry capsule. They were members of the International Space Station’s Expedition 63 crew, who, along with NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy, came back to Earth with a bump. Their craft had just landed a little southeast of Zhezqazghan town in Kazakhstan on October 22, 2020.

14. Colorado fires

This incredible false-color picture taken on the Landsat 8 satellite on October 22, 2020, is tinged with a great sadness. That’s because it shows the devastating East Troublesome wildfires that struck Colorado, which were the second worst in the state’s history. The blaze torched over 190,000 acres of land. You can clearly see all the smoke emanating from it.

13. Blasting off

Can you imagine being one of the astronauts blasting off inside this Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft? The excitement, the trepidation – it must be an adrenaline rush like no other. In this case, the Expedition 64 members on board included Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut named Kate Rubins. It was October 14, 2020, and they were on their way to the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Thankfully, they all got there in one piece.

12. Mars-like creek

Wow. That’s the first word that came to mind upon looking at this photograph. Taken by the International Space Station Crew Earth Observations Facility on April 5, 2020, the pic shows Australia’s awe-inspiring Cooper Creek floodplain. The red sands around the major river system almost make it look like Mars. But it’s in southwest Queensland, honest.

11. Eruption of Klyuchevskaya

Here’s a photograph from space that looks like it could be of Mordor. But no, this is actually in Russia. The false-colored image is of Klyuchevskaya, which today is among the more active of Earth’s volcanoes. It’s located on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where it’s been erupting regularly since October 2019. This image was snapped on April 21, 2020, by Landsat 8. Note how the volcano is puffing both ash and steam, while lava flows down one of its sides.

10. Hurtling to space

This astonishing photograph shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it hurtles up to space. It was taken on November 15, 2020, not long after the spacecraft had been launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Three NASA astronauts and their Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency colleague were on board for the ride of a lifetime.

9. Brighten up

It was July 5, 2020, and there was a most thrilling sight visible from the International Space Station. Basically, a comet known as NEOWISE was in the middle of shooting through the solar system. Too bad if you missed it, because it’ll be roughly another 6,800 years before it happens again.

8. Antarctica melting away

This one is more than a little alarming. As beautiful as this photograph looks with its dark blue and turquoise waters and huge areas of white ice, it effectively depicts global warming in action. You see, Antarctica was enduring record temperatures when this picture was taken. Remarkably, the northern tip of the continent hit 64.9 °F on February 6, 2020, which was nearly the same as L.A. at the time.

7. Cape Canaveral launch

Who doesn’t love a rocket launch? After all, they’re surely among the coolest things that human beings have ever accomplished. This particular photograph was taken by Bill Ingalls from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 30, 2020. That’s the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket and Crew Dragon Capsule firing astronauts up to the International Space Station. Awesome.

6. Shoot the Sun

You’ve probably been told that you should never look directly at the Sun. That’s some sound advice, but thankfully you’re okay to take a peek at this mesmerizing photograph. It’s actually a composite image that illustrates how the International Space Station travels through space, 250 miles from our planet. Cool!

5. Space radish

Here’s an interesting peek at one of the many research and science experiments that occur aboard the International Space Station. Astronaut Kate Rubins was part of a project to grow radishes in an environment with extremely weak gravity. The hope was that this project could lead to the optimization of plant development in outer space.

4. Testing, testing

You might be wondering what exactly you’re looking at floating above the Earth in this photograph. Well, the answer is that this is the STPSat-4 satellite being deployed for use. This hi-tech piece of space apparatus is equipped with a range of antennas, weather sensors, solar panels and tracking instruments.

3. Storm in the night

This image may look beautiful from space, but it was a truly destructive weather event down on Earth. The photograph shows Hurricane Laura, which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in August 2020. The picture in question was acquired by the NOAA-20 satellite at 2:20 a.m. Central Time on August 26, 2020.

2. Mexico in focus

Below the International Space Station on March 23, 2020, was America’s southern neighbor Mexico. An astronaut expertly captured nearly the entirety of the country in this fantastic photograph. You can see its magnificent mountain ranges and rugged coastlines, plus the disparate climate zones like dense forests and coastal plains.

1. Sandy bank

Created by numerous geologic developments and the interactions of ocean organisms, this stunning formation of seagrass and sand is known as the Great Bahama Bank. It used to be on dry land millions of years ago, but it was gradually submerged by rising sea levels. This image taken by Landsat 8 on February 15, 2020, shows us the bank’s mix of limestone and white carbonate sand.