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The Enchanting View From Mars and Beyond! (PHOTOS)

During the last 10 years, NASA has treated us to some of the most amazing imagery from the surface of Mars. Here are some of my favorites!
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Astronomer, NASA Heliophysics Education Consortium

Astronomer, NASA Heliophysics Education Consortium
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Back in 1968, Apollo astronauts took a photo of the "Earthrise" over the barren landscape of the Moon.

2014-05-12-NASAApollo8Dec24Earthrise.jpg

NASA/Bill Anders

This iconic Christmas photo from space is widely recognized as having launched the ecology movement and Earth Day.

During the last 10 years, NASA has treated us to some of the most amazing imagery, from the distant rings of Saturn (provided by the Cassini mission) to the surface of Mars (thanks to the efforts of several operating rovers). One wonders what movements these images may inspire in the future. Here are some of my favorites!

Sunset On Another World
NASA/JPL-Caltech
I never get tired of seeing the Sun set through Mars' dusty atmosphere. It's easy to imagine I am standing alongside the Pathfinder rover and gazing at the dusty skies above the horizon as the Sun's tiny disk sinks below the distant mountains. This picture was one of the first ones I saw back in 1997 that really got me thinking about humans exploring space far from Earth's familiar perspectives.
Earthrise From Mars' Orbit
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
It only looks like a dot of light in images captured by the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars, but how about this one taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter?! The disks of Earth and our Moon are clearly seen, and you can even make out the outline of the west coast of South America, although the life-giving clouds of water vapor are the dominant features.
Dust Storms On Mars
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Finally, after decades of looking at planets, we see something actually move on the human timescale! In 2005, while visiting Mars' Gusev Crater, the Spirit rover captured a sequence of images of a dust devil spinning by and kicking up dust. This sequence of images shows that dust devil traveling at a sedate speed of about 11 miles per hour, which would require most people to run a 5-minute mile to outrace it. The image above shows another view of a dust devil, this time taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looking down from space. Unbelievable!
Solar Eclipses... Almost
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M
For the first time in human history, we get to see a solar eclipse from the surface of another planet! Not even the Apollo astronauts could be at the right place at the right time to see such an event from the lunar surface. What is even more amazing is that this Martian eclipse would not have been seen if the Curiosity rover had been 10 kilometers away from its observing spot. Talk about good luck! Technically, because the disk of the Martian moon Phobos does not completely cover the solar disk, it is better to call this a transit than an eclipse. This movie shows the Phobos transit viewed by the Curiosity rover in August 2013. At this distance the Sun's disk is almost half the size we see from Earth. Phobos orbits only 3,700 miles above the Martian surface and zips across the sky in four hours.
Asteroid Sightings
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M
Mars orbits very close to the Solar System's asteroid belts, so -- duh! -- it was just a matter of time before the cameras of the Curiosity rover happened to glimpse several of these interplanetary rocks in the Martian nighttime sky. This image from April 2014 shows the asteroids Ceres and Vesta millions of miles from Mars, but recognizable as slow-moving spots of light sailing across the sky. Curiosity also saw Jupiter, a tad brighter here than Earthlings would see from Earth on the same night.
Meteorite
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
In 2005 the Mars rover Opportunity just happened to pass by a curious-looking rock sitting alone on the barren Martian ground. A closer study revealed that this is in fact an iron-nickel meteorite about the size of a basketball. What are the odds? If you were to plop the same rover on Earth's surface, it would take decades of wandering before it found such an object -- if ever! This image shows the intriguing, pitted surface of this remarkably rare find.
Meteor
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
We all enjoy a good meteor shower, and Martian colonists will no doubt get to share this thrill from Mars when they get there! On March 7, 2005, the Spirit rover was our first pair of eyes to actually see the familiar, fleeting streaks of light in Mars' night sky. Upon closer study, astronomers figured out that this was probably a meteor whose parent body is comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff. Another possibility originally considered was that this could have been the Viking 2 orbiter rather than a meteor. This image is still kind of exciting to me, because it further cements the kinship between our two worlds and makes the otherwise harsh Martian landscape seem not quite so alien after all.

And when we finish with Mars, there are still other vistas across our Solar System that are just too cool for words, like seeing Earth through the rings of Saturn (thanks to the Cassini spacecraft), or seeing Earth as a pale blue dot from beyond the orbit of Pluto (thanks to the Voyager 1 spacecraft). Further out still, we have the dramatic discoveries of thousands of planets orbiting distant stars.

What amazing vistas will future robotic probes relay back to Earth? One hopes humanity survives to appreciate those new perspectives too!

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