NASA’s Mercury bound MESSENGER spacecraft has been used to image the first portrait of our Solar System from the ‘inside’ looking out. The portrait consists of 34 images taken by MESSENGER’s Wide Angle Camera on November 3 and 16, 2010. The portrait or mosaic has just been released. In the mosaic, all of the planets are visible except for Uranus and Neptune, which were too faint to detect. Earth’s Moon and Jupiter’s Galilean satellites. Part of the Milky Way (our home galaxy) is also visible in the portrait.
Further information can be found here on the MESSENGER website (including a larger version of the image). As an aside, assuming all goes well, the MESSENGER spacecraft will become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury from 18 March this year (after orbital insertion).
