9 Out-of-This-World Photos From Space

1. The first selfie in space

Buzz Aldrin claimed that he took the first selfie in space during the Gemini 12 mission on this day in 1966. Here, Buzz is photographed with the pilot's hatch of the spacecraft open.

2. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

Here we can see Neil Armstrong's footprint on the moon after the first ever step onto the lunar surface during the Apollo-Saturn 11 mission. It offers a glimpse of the incredible way humans have left their (albeit small) mark on outer space.

3. Don't look down

Taken in 1984, this dizzying photograph shows Bruce McCandless making the first untethered space walk during the Space Shuttle 41-B Challenger mission.

4. The red planet

This image was taken by the Viking 2 lander and is the first ever color photograph taken on the surface of Mars. It shows that the surface is just as red as you'd imagine for the famously 'red planet'.

6. The Pillars of Creation

This panoramic image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a high-resolution panoramic view of the "Pillars of Creation," and is one of the orbiting telescope's most famous images. Located at the heart of the Eagle Nebula, a favorite feature for amateur astronomers, the Pillars are giant, gaseous nurseries for newborn stars. The largest of the three Pillars in the 1995 Hubble image is about four light-years from base to tip. But, despite being so vast, the Pillars are only a tiny feature (shown at center) of this huge image produced by the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope.

8. Reaching for the stars

We often speak of that "one small step for Man", but there are also lots of amazing spacewomen who have equally made giant leaps for space exploration. This image shows astronaut Peggy Whitson working on the assembly of the International Space Station in outer space. Whitson was the first female mission commander of the International Space Station. Her total duration of space flights is record-setting among women, totaling 376 days, 17 hours and 28 minutes.

9. Gaze into the Great Beyond

Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute unveiled this photo on March 9, 2004. It's a picture of an area in space called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and was taken by cameras on the NASA Hubble Space Telescope. At the time this was the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever seen.

It shows the swirls of distant galaxies, each of which contains billions of stars.

Beautiful, and just a little bit terrifying, these images show us a glimpse of the universe beyond our world.