Royal Mail Honors Space Science (November 2, 2012)

Hi-res TIF (258K)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Britain's first contribution to space exploration.

On 26 April 1962, its first satellite, Ariel 1, was launched by NASA, carrying experiments designed by British universities and making Britain the world's third spacefaring nation, after Russia and America. Royal Mail is celebrating with a set of six commemorative stamps, featuring images from European Space Agency missions.

Previous astronomy issues had looked at the distant galaxies, so in this case it was decided to take a more "local" approach and explore our home solar system. Royal Mail's stamp policy team worked closely with ESA to determine the content and select recent images gathered by ESA & NASA space observatories and probes. Below, the series of the commemorative stamps.

(click on each stamp for a larger image)

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.