From the vantage points of the other planets in the Solar System, it’s increasingly clear that a form of life capable of space travel lives on the third sphere from the Sun. If the rolling, rust-red topography of Mars, or Jupiter’s eruptive moon Io, or the ethereal rings of Saturn could speak, they might even be able to describe what that life-form looks like. It invariably comes in a carapace of hardened metal. Moving at an extremely high rate of speed, it pans and scans ceaselessly, using glass eyes and other senses. It either absorbs energy from the Sun, or feeds itself with radioactive power—the former via beautifully symmetrical wings, the latter from radioactive cells distended, at a strut-like arm’s length, a safe distance from its hyperactive sensory organs. And it always reports everything it sees and senses—everything—back to its home planet. This is achieved through an umbrella-shaped high-gain antenna, capable of projecting a “voice” consisting of a high-speed, digitized chain of zeroes and ones, back to its home world.

That voice doesn’t report in words. It sends pictures. Thousands of them. In the past four decades, the small squadron of robots that have been launched to explore the Solar System has produced an eye-openingly visionary body of work, one that easily ranks with the greatest achievements of landscape photography. Extensive archival research and years of image-processing have produced the first comprehensive assessment of this genre. "Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes" pulls together 295 of the most spectacular images from the history of robotic space exploration – including four 45-inch-wide panoramic gatefolds – to create an awe-inspiring visual narrative journey through the planets.

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