This past Wednesday, February 5th, was the 40th anniversary of NASA's Mariner 10 mission taking the first close-up photo of the planet Venus. Mariner 10 was launched on November 3rd, 1973, and its purpose was to fly by not only Venus, but Mercury as well. Slightly over three months after its departure, Mariner 10 flew by Venus and captured this image of its cloudy atmosphere from about 3600 miles away using a near-ultraviolet filter. What's amazing about this photo is that 40 years after it was taken, it is still the closest and most detailed photo we have ever gotten of Venus. However, because of the fact that it has been our closest view of Venus for so long, it makes me wonder about how and when we'll get more photos like this of other planets and galaxies. Since we have much more advanced technology in our telescopes and our cameras today than 40 years ago, it will be interesting to see if we can recreate this photo, among others, and create new ones like it.
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