Nasa’s Most Iconic Images

We put aside our telescopes and piled the sky into our WhereOnThe.Net analytics tool to discover which of NASA’s astronomical wonders have been viewed the most.

“Pillars of Creation,” 1995

Pillars of Creation. Photo taken by the Hubble Space telescope, 1995. Source: NASA/European space agency/STSCI/JEFF HESTER via Air & Space Smithsonian

The majestic “Pillars of Creation” image taken by the Hubble Space telescope in 1995, appeared on 2128 websites and 9121 unique pages. It’s original source website, nasa.gov, can be seen on the infographic below.

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Buzz Aldrin on the moon, 1969

Buzz Aldrin on the moon, NASA, 1969. The image has been reproduced as a silk screen by Andy Warhol. Source: Air & Space Smithsonian

The epic image that captured Buzz Aldrin’s walk on the moon pulled up even more impressive results, appearing on 4933 websites and 53376 unique pages. Wisegeek.org was one of the sites to have given ol’ Buzz the most air time with 8793 occurrences.

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Liftoff of Apollo 11, 1969

Liftoff of Apollo 11, NASA, 1969. Source: NASA via Air & Space Smithsonian

And how about that momentous photo capturing the first space shuttle liftoff of Apollo in 1969? Turns out, it appeared on 232 websites and 1911 unique pages including photo-researchers-inc.

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Challenger (STS 51-L) Exhaust Trail

Challenger (STS 51-L) Exhaust Trail, NASA, 1986. Source: via Air & Space Smithsonian

This image shows the Challenger 73 space shuttle mid-destruction in 1986, just seconds after launching. The event which was televised, is now memorialized in this image which has featured on 844 websites and 2808 unique pages including newscientist.com.

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Comet 67P, 2014

Comet 67P (Mosaic of four images). Photo: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM, 2014. Source: CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

The Comet 67P NavCam mosaic was captured in September 2014 when research published around this time revealed that the comet’s weather system is driven by an “intense day-night cycle.” The image went on to appear on 160 websites and 2665 unique pages, including i09.

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Got a favorite NASA image you’d like to learn more about? Find out where it is and where it’s been with WhereOnThe.Net and share your results with us.

WhereOnThe.Net traces how images spread online. Whether you want to find copies of your own work or track viral images, we crawl the Internet and show you all the sites it has appeared on and it’s growth over time.

Images used in this article are used subject to news reporting and quotation exemptions in German copyright law, but if you are the rightsholder and think it should be taken down, please let us know. For any questions, please email us at contact@whereonthe.net.