<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Mercury  THEN Mariner 10&amp;#039;s three flybys of Mercury in 1974 and 1975 produced much of what we know about the smallest rocky planet in the system. The densely packed, lightweight spacecraft contained a variety of instruments, including TV cameras that took shots of more than half of Mercury&amp;#039;s surface and sent back thousands of images. Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Mercury as well as the first spacecraft to send back 100-meter-resolution images from another planet. But Mariner 10 was plagued with problems: As the ship approached Mercury, one of its antennas started going through an erratic fail-heal cycle. Five weeks before the second flyby, a tape recorder failed, which meant that no data could be stored, and all of Mariner 10&amp;#039;s data had to be sent back immediately or be lost.   NOW Thirty years later, NASA&amp;#039;s Messenger mission ups the ante as it becomes the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury--and takes pictures of the regions unseen by Mariner 10. Messenger boasts better tech, like the Mercury Dual Imaging System, or MDIS, which was used to produce this intimate picture. The MDIS includes a wide-angle-lens color camera that can produce images with 2000-meter-per-pixel resolution and a narrow-angle monochrome camera with 500-meter-per-pixel resolution. The dual cameras worked together to produce this intimate view of Mercury, which comes from Messenger&amp;#039;s most recent flyby of the planet in October of this year. For reference, that crater in the middle of the picture is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) across.   Venus  THEN Here is Venus&amp;#039;s surface, as seen from the panoramic telephotometer aboard the Soviet Venera 10 Lander. In its 53-minute life span--measured from when it landed on the surface to the time it succumbed to the 450-plus-degree heat--the Venera 10&amp;#039;s optical-mechanical camera snapped pictures (at a resolution of 128 x 512 pixels) and showed that, at least at that moment, the planet was extraordinarily cloudy. But Venera&amp;#039;s black-and-white, limited shots, and its preliminary investigations of Venus&amp;#039;s cloud cover, barely hinted at the harsh weather that a future mission would measure.   NOW The south pole is at the bottom and the equator is at the top in this infrared and ultraviolet image of Venus from the European Space Agency&amp;#039;s Venus Express last year. The Venus Express, launched in November 2005, reached Venus in April 2006 and has been reporting from orbit ever since. The Venus Express has already found lightning in the noxious atmosphere, sent back weather maps of the planet&amp;#039;s surface and atmosphere and bewildered scientists with images of a double vortex at the south pole.    Earth  THEN This influential photo, taken by Apollo 8 astronauts in December 1968, changed the view that humans had of Earth. It led us to view our planet as a small, even fragile ecosystem.  NOW Earth Rise gave us a sentimental big picture, but since then we&amp;#039;ve been able to spot more than just hurricanes and cloud cover. Here is the latest imagery from the host of NASA&amp;#039;s Earth-observing satellites, which measure everything from orbiting space debris to light pollution to drought. This image, taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on board NASA&amp;#039;s Terra satellite, shows the extent of fire damage around Los Angeles.    Mars  THEN In July 1976, the Viking 1 lander touched down on the Mars--the first vehicle to do so successfully. Viking 1 carried instruments to take photos, measure seismic activity and get elementary weather reports. Advanced as it was for the time, Viking 1&amp;#039;s observations left many unanswered questions about Martian history--including whether or not there was water or life.  NOW Thirty years later, the Mars Phoenix Lander arrived on the Red Planet equipped with an onboard meteorological laboratory, a 1-megapixel Surface Stereo Imager and a gas analyzer. This image shows sublimation (when a solid vaporizes into a gas without becoming liquid) and is the first glimpse of Martian ice. In the left picture, titled Sol 20, there are tiny, dust-coated ice cubes in the bottom-left part of the frame. They almost look like rocks, except that in the next image--titled Sol 24--they&amp;#039;re gone, like a Martian version of dry ice.    Jupiter  THEN Voyagers 1 and 2 both flew by Jupiter in 1977, and between them they found three new moons and a ring--as well as proof of volcanic activity on Jupiter&amp;#039;s moon Io. At the time, Voyager I had the highest data transmission rate of any spacecraft--21,600 bits per second--although between its trajectory and its rudimentary (by today&amp;#039;s standards) camera, it couldn&amp;#039;t get better than a resolution of 20 km for Jupiter.   NOW Blink and you miss it. Thanks to telescope upgrades, like the brand-new Wide Field Camera 3 that took this picture and can take pictures in infrared, ultraviolet and visible parts of the spectrum, we can watch Jupiter in real time from the comforts of Earth. In July 2009, in the first observation after Hubble&amp;#039;s mid-May repair, engineers aimed the Hubble Space Telescope at Jupiter to observe worlds in collision: This new dark spot on Jupiter&amp;#039;s surface shows the impact of an asteroid and changes day to day. We may not get the same resolution as we would by taking pictures in Jupiter&amp;#039;s backyard, but the Hubble can look at Jupiter anytime--not just when it&amp;#039;s passing by.    Saturn  THEN Thirty years ago, this iconic portrait was our best view of Saturn. It was taken on Sept. 1, 1979, by Pioneer 11&amp;#039;s photopolarimeter, which scanned across an area and recorded brightness, pixel by painstaking pixel--not unlike old television cameras.   NOW How times have changed. Cassini, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built, has sent back some of the most dazzling photographs of the solar system that Earthlings have ever seen. The spacecraft carries dust analyzers and two cameras--the more sensitive of which could take a picture of a quarter from 2.5 miles away. On Nov. 30 it is scheduled to begins its 122nd looping, elliptical trip around the planet.   Uranus  THEN We knew almost nothing about Uranus until 1977, when astronomers suspected there were rings around it; they had been detected by telescopes as a blink when the planet passed between the Earth and a distant star. By 1986, Voyager 2 made it to Uranus and confirmed rings, along with a slew of other data, including the length of a day--17.24 hours.   NOW While we have not sent a probe back to Uranus, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope has told us much more than Voyager 2 ever could. This picture, taken in 2007, shows fully visible rings around Uranus. This is a rarity, since the rings of the planet are only visible edge-on every 42 years or so.    Neptune  THEN In 1977, astronomers predicted partial rings around Neptune, detected by telescopes when Neptune passed between the Earth and a distant star. But they weren&amp;#039;t sure until 1989, when Voyager 2 beamed back photographic proof of multiple rings encircling the planet.   NOW Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that Neptune not only has rings, but also bright clouds of icy methane and, according to infrared images captured by Hubble, changing seasons. It also has at least 13 moons. These three shots show the satellites in motion.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a4857/4337315/>