Mercury rising – the planets as you have never seen them before

When Nasa first sent lunar probes into space, the world got a glimpse of the moon and Earth in orbit. Recently enhanced, the images star in a new exhibition celebrating five decades of planetary photography

For more than half a century, robot spaceships have swept through our solar system, returning data that has transformed our knowledge of our sister planets. We now know that Venus is an acid-drenched, scorching hell, Mars is desolate and virtually airless, while several of Jupiter's moons may have liquid oceans below their surfaces.

These missions have provided science with some remarkable revelations, matched only by the equally striking photographs of these alien worlds that have been beamed back to Earth: the braided rings of Saturn; the plumes of water being ejected into space from its moon, Enceladus; and great volcanoes of Jupiter's moon, Io.