‘Mars from Deimos'

The dumbell-shaped spaceship shown in an earlier image is seen here, touching down lightly in the low gravity of Mars's little outer moon, Deimos. The polar cap is clearly visible, and at that time it was still considered possible that the dark areas on Mars were caused by vegetation, fed by the melting caps. On the right of the planet is Phobos, the inner moon.

‘Martian Landscape’

Because Mars was known to have an atmosphere the sky was painted a dark blue. In the 1950s it was believed that Mars has no mountains, but Hardy painted eroded buttes, which are now known to exist. There is also a strip of vegetation, marking a watercourse or 'canal'.

‘Icarus Approaches the Sun’

Most asteroids move in orbits between Mars and Jupiter, but there are 'Apollo' asteroids which approach Earth. The orbit of Icarus is even stranger, for it swoops from the frozen outer reaches of the Solar System until it is even closer to the solar furnace than Mercury. At this time it must glow red-hot, as here.

'Jupiter from Europa'

The first space painting to which Hardy will admit to being 'fairly happy', it was done when he was 16. Europa was assumed to be icy because it has a high albedo (it's bright), but the artist also admits that he used some of Scott's photographs from the Antarctic as references!

‘Enceladus’

When Hardy painted this, he says he was trying to be rather minimalist – making it almost an abstract of light and shadow. The edge-on rings of Saturn cast a strong shadow on the planet, and reflect light back onto its dark side.