1972 - I think this is a pretty cool image. It was taken the year you were born, 1972. It was taken on the Apollo 17 as they went to the moon, that trip being the 6th and final time humans stepped foot on the moon. It's amazing everything, including your life and mine have taken place on this planet. That being, this photo was aptly named "The Blue Marble".

1973 - This is a test of a rocket engine for the space shuttle. In 1973 development of the space shuttle began, marking a new age of NASA. It's a rather basic image but I find it really cool because it's the start of teh development of a pivotal creation.

1974 - In 1973 NASA launched Mariner 10, a probe that would pass mercury for the first time in 1974. This image was created by the data taken by the probe. The little smooth spot on the top right is a region where no data was collected. I think this one is really cool, and not just the image but all the effort needed to take it. NASA scientists had to use the orbit of venus to get the probe to mercury. This was the first mission to use the orbit of a planet to change its path.

1975 - This is the launch of the Viking 2 lander and orbiter; both going onto take pictures of mars. They were launched via a Titan III-Centaur, shown in the image.

1976 - This is the first color image of the surface of mars taken by the Viking 2 lander, a few months after it landed in July 1976. This is the first color image of mars' surface. Truly awesome.

1977 - In 1977 Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched. These probes would go on to be some of the most famous works of NASA, ever. Voyager 1 has gone on to be the first human made object to exit the solar system. This image is of the golden record, each vessel holding an identical copy. It contains a phonograph record and portrays a map of where earth is. The diagrams on the top half show how to play the phonograph record, the bottom left shows where earth is according to pulsars (those spinimg stars that emit huge lines of light out of both sides) and the bottom right shows two hydrogen atoms in two different states, the duration of a hydrogen atom between those states acts as a clock that shows the speed the record needs to be played. Kinda a lot I'm not sure I understand it myself to be honest. Is telling aliens exactly where we are a good idea anyways?? We'll find out eventually.

1978 - This is a mock-up of a space shuttle, called Pathfinder, to be looked at, at Kennedy Space Center. This marks the beginning of the space shuttle era for NASA. This is the first of 7 orbital space shuttles. The first two shuttles would be tests in order to create the last 5, all of which would go into orbit.

1979 - Here Voyager 1 takes a picture of jupiter and it's two moons. I picked this one because it really covers all bases when it comes to jupiter. You can see jupiter's huge storm, as well as 2 of its moons, Io on the left and Europa on the right. Something really cool about Europa is the possibility of an Ocean beneath its surface. If it exists, it's possible it could contain life, or at least the conditions for it's creation.

1980 - Now, he 80s have begun. This photo was taken from the Voyager 1 as it bids saturn farewell. I really love this image, it's really pretty.

1981 - Now, we see Voyager 2 reach saturn. Voyager 2 used 3 filters - ultaviolet, violet, and green - to create this image. These colors aren't accurate but the picture still comes out really pretty. I really like how colorful this image is due to how it was created.

1982 - This image shows the 3rd orbital space shuttle, Colombia, embarking on Space Transportation System 3 (STS-3), NASA's 3rd space shuttle mission to space. This one really shows those classic orange and white space shuttle colors. Must've been really awesome living in this iconic era of NASA.

1983 - STS-6 was NASA's 6th mission to space, the first flight of the shuttle Challenger, NASA's second operational space shuttle. This mission lasted 5 days, April 4th-9th.

1984 - 1984 marks the first launch of the shuttle Discovery, STS-41-D. This mission lasted 6 days, August 30th - September 5th. This image shows an experimental solar array on the back of the shuttle.

1985 - STS-51-J was the 21st space shuttle mission and the Atlantis shuttle's first mission. Atlantis is NASA's 4th orbital space shuttle of 5. It's first mission lasted 4 days, October 3rd-7th. This image shows some of the satellites that were launched into orbit when the shuttle was in orbit. Kinda cool how they got multiple things done during their launches like testing the aforementioned solar array and here launching satellites. As you can tell NASA's main thing at this time was space shuttles, but both Voyager probes are still out there, on their way to Uranus.

1986 - In january of 1986 the Challenger space shuttle would embark on it's 10th flight where it would be destroyed. The main mission of this flight was to observe the upcoming Halley's Comet, shown in the picture. In 1758 Halley's Comet was discovered to re appear, and certain previous sightings of comets were actually Halley's Comet. Halley's Comet has an orbit of around 75 years, meaning the next re appearance will be in 2061. Maybe you'll live to see it! The Challenger disaster was the first launch to involve fatalities during a flight. This mistake was a huge learning point for NASA and would go on to help more innovations to later shuttles.

1987 - The 20th of august 1987 would mark 10 years since the Voyager probes were launched. During this time they are on their way to Neptune, and NASA's deep space network is being expanded to be able to hear the signals sent from them. Is it just me or is it crazy that like millions of miles away these probes can still send images.

1988 - 975 days after the Challenger disaster, spaceflight is back. The first manned mission is done on the Discovery. Using new innovations since the disaster, the flight went swimmingly and post flight, the areas that caused the challenger's disaster were fine. At this point NASA has definitely learned from their mistakes.

1989 - In 1989 Voyager 2 reaches Neptune. Voyager 2 creates another false color image like the one from the 1981 image. The red you can see around the edges is actually methane. Using the filters, scientists were able to basically color code the areas they wanted to observe, and here they used the red to observe the thickness of the methane haze surrounding neptune. I think this image is the best one taken of neptune. There's so much to the image, like the fact it was one of the last images of neptune, or any planet, taken by Voyager 2 as it prepared to leave the solar system. I also really like that white spot in the middle of the dark spot on neptune, it almost looks like a huge eye.

1990 - In 1990 Voyager 1 took a series of photographs of every planet. Here, 3.7 billion miles away from earth, the photo Pale Blue Dot was taken. If you look extremely closely you can see a small little dot. From now on, both Voyager Probes are on their way to exiting the solar system. Also in 1990, Hubble Space Telescope was lauched into orbit.

1991 - This is the first photo of jupiter from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's supposed to potray the true colors of jupiter which is pretty cool. You can also see the big spot on the left.

1992 - This image was taken of a supposed black hole at the center of our galaxy, the craziest part though is that the ring is 600 light years across.

1993 - This is an image of the first servicing mission of the hubble space telescope. One of the mirrors that helped get images had been messedup somehow, causing images to be blurry. The previous year the 5th and final shuttle, Endeavor, had made its debut, and now it was going to fix hubble in orbit. The mission was a success and hubble was fixed. This image shows the space walk in action. I can't imagine how difficult that must've been especially with clunky space suits and stuff.

1994 - This is the impact site of a comet that hit jupiter. The fact this telescope can zoom in so much is insane.

1995 - This photo is of the eagle nebula, a huge formation of gas. These reason photos of nebulas look so vivid is the same reason those voyager images of saturn and neptune do, they get different light from different particles, in this case the red insides are sulfur, and the green and blue outside areas are hydrogen and oxygen. These mixures of gas are the perfect areas for stars to form.

1996 - This is a galaxy 17 million light years away. The thing thats so cool to me about this is that this is how it looked 17 million years ago. its crazy how light traveling to us preserves what things used to look like. Many of the stars in our skies could be gone, but we just see what they used to look like.

1997 - This shows hubble on its 2nd servicing mission. You can see it right on the horizon of earth, and this reminds me of like, how hubble orbits at the exactly perfect distance from earth, and how so many calculations and work must've gone into that.

1998 - 1998 marks the year the Internation Space Station began construction. This involved launching bits of it, or nodes, one by one into orbit, kinda like a lego set. This is the first node as pictured by the shuttle Endeavor.

1999 - In 1998 the Mars Climate Orbiter was launched to observe the climate and surface of Mars. Around 10 months after its launch in 1999 it was set to move but during the move we lost contact. After a investigation, it was revealed that lockheed martin engineers used the imperial system and NASA engineers used the metric system, causing discrepancies leading to the crash. Pretty funny to be honest. The image shows concept art of the probe.

2000 - This image shows a really vivid image of a dying star. Kinda like the death of the star is the 1900s and the new tiny star in the middle is the 2000s.

2001 - Both of us have probably seen this image before but it's rather interesting. The image shows the smoke coming from the twin towers on 9/11 as seen from the ISS. As you being someone alive at that time that must've been a crazy experience. I'll never be able to answer the question of "where were you on 9/11". It's really interesting that it's kinda like just a part of culture now, and you were there to see it.

2002 - This image shows further development on the ISS.

2003 - In 2003 the 1st operational space shuttle, Colombia, went on it's 28th and final mission. It stayed in orbit for 15 days, but upon entry, it was destroyed. During it's orbit, many experiments took place. The image is a picture of mount fuji from the Colombia.

2004 - This shows hurricane Ivan from the ISS. You can really see the eye of the storm, it's really cool. Good thing those people were in orbit and not down there. It's insane how big it is even from orbit.

2005 - This image shows ice (like water ice) in a crater on mars. Maybe aliens are real! Seriously though mars' conditions wouldn't typically allow ice there, but the shadow of the extremely high walls of the crater protect it from sunlight. This helps show possible places where astronauts could land on mars in that option is ever explored further.

2006 - This image shows the ISS with even further progress. To this day it is still the largest man made object orbiting earth. At this time NASA was still doing many of the resupply missions.

2007 - This shows the largest known supernova to date, first discovered in 1987. This photo is a more recent one taken by hubble. The rings around both sides are still unexplained. It's really cool how space is so chaotic yet can be so symmetrical.

2008 - This is an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 7331. It's extremely detailed. I like how you can even see other galaxies in the background.

2009 - We've made it all the way to my birthday. In 2009 the longest total solar eclipse so far of the 21st century happened, just a month before I was born. This image was taken in bangladesh, during totality. Pretty cool to start with the earth and end with the moon and sun! Happy birthday.