See our solar system like you’ve never seen it before

Book Excerpt: Otherworlds

By Michael Benson

Posted on Mar 17, 2017 3:30 PM EDT

A Plutonian Haze — When NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft flew by Pluto in July 2015, a sense of astonishment was experienced by the mission’s scientists. Pluto contained a far more variegated surface than anyone had dared to hope for. And soon after the closest approach, it became clear that when back-lit by the Sun, the dwarf planet's tenuous atmosphere was as blue as the skies of Earth. Mosiac composite photograph. New Horizons, July 14, 2015 NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Michael Benson/Kinetikon Pictures

cover page of otherworlds featuring jupiter and one moon — Michael Benson’s Otherworlds is a book that was produced in conjunction with an exhibit of the same name at London’s Natural History Museum. Michael Benson/Abrams Books

The following is an excerpt from Otherworlds by Michael Benson.

Editors note: to see all of the incredible, otherworldly details in these photos, click on the arrows at the top right of each image to enlarge.

Mercury Transiting the Sun

Lava Flows on venus

Earth and Moon

Fog and mist hang low in a valley on mars

Asteroid Eros

Europa and the Great Red Spot

looking down on Saturn

uranus

Neptune and Triton

Excerpted from Otherworlds by Michael Benson, published by Abrams books March 2017. Published with permission.

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