The Final Frontier – Fifty Years of Space Exploration in One Graphic
From the Curiosity Rover to the Cassini spacecraft, follow the sweeping paths of our space missions
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Space may be the final frontier, but you might be surprised by just how much we’ve explored. Of course, there’s still basically all of space out there waiting for us, but this graphic shows the past 50 years of exploration. From the Curiosity Rover to the Cassini spacecraft, follow their sweeping paths through our universe.
Who wins for the most missions? Well, the moon, by far with 73. But you might be surprised that Venus beats Mars by three, and that we’ve sent nine missions to the sun. The first craft to cross the asteroid belt was the Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. And the first probe to orbit and touch down on an asteroid was the Shoemaker in 2001.
What this graphic doesn’t show is all of the vast, vast expanse of blackness we haven’t been, and probably will never be.
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