First Class One Ounce Forever
Sheet of sixteen, eight stamp designs
During the modern era of space exploration, the planets of our solar system have been viewed with increasing clarity, thanks to the distant voyages of unmanned spacecraft and the development of ever-more powerful telescopes. With this pane of 16 stamps, the U.S. Postal Service® showcases some of the more visually compelling full-disk images of the planets obtained during this era.
Eight new colorful Forever® stamps, each shown twice, feature Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Some show the planet’s “true” color—what we might see with our own eyes if traveling through space. Others use colors to represent and visualize certain features of a planet based on imaging data. Still others use the near-infrared spectrum to show things that cannot be seen by the human eye in visible light. Verso text explains what these images reveal and identifies the spacecrafts and powerful telescopes that helped obtain them.
Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamps.
Views of Our Planets is being issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal to the current First-Class Mail® one ounce price.
Image Credits
Earth – NASA
Jupiter – NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona)
Mars – NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Mercury – NASA/The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Neptune – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Saturn – NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Uranus – NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona)
Venus – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Made in the USA.
Issue Date: May 31, 2016
Art Director/Designer: Antonio Alcalá
SKU: 473604
USPS® Philatelic Archive 