Oct 15, 2014 6:30 AM

Gallery: Travel Through Time With These Strange and Beautiful Visualizations of the Universe

State Library of Lucca
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A dramatic early representation of a spherical Earth, from medieval visionary writer, composer, and proto-feminist Hildegard von Bingen
Courtesy the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C.
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Professor Orlando Ferguson refutes the “globe theory” in this broadsheet bulletin from Hot Springs, South Dakota, proposing instead a kind of four-cornered, roulette-wheel world.

Courtesy the David Rumsey Historical Maps Collection
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Physiographic map of the world’s oceans from 1976.
Courtesy Olga Shonova
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Czech illustrator Ludek Pesek painted a a craggy lunar landscape with distant Earth low on the horizon in 1963.

The Ashmolean Museum Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art
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An angel holds the celestial spheres in this medieval Islamic drawing.
Courtesy AMNH-Hayden Planetarium, from Dark Universe, directed by Carter Emmart, produced by Vivian Trakinski
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A depiction of visible galaxies and clusters from a 2013 visualization

Courtesy the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
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This depiction of Mars from 1881 is beautiful but largely unsupported by later evidence.
Courtesy the Library of Congress
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A detailed map of the solar system from the 1800s.

Courtesy the Library of Congress
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A depiction of a total eclipse that occurred on May 12, 1706.
Courtesy Day & Faber
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A fiery and fanciful view of a comet.

Courtesy Day & Faber
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Another depiction of a comet from the mid-1500s.

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