(Mike Malaska, NASA )

NASA just served up a cool reminder of mankind's space accomplishments in the past few decades, and it's only going to get more impressive in the next month.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory compiled a convenient look at some of the highlights of space exploration over the last four decades in a photo compilation that shows the surfaces of various planets, moons and other extraterrestrial objects.

The photo (above) shows the differences between various surfaces across the Milky Way, from the barren grey matter on the surface of the Asteroid Itakawa, to the highly varied, watery surface of Earth. According to NASA, when consumed from left to right, the compilation shows increasingly more complex environments on the surface of the given planet.

And the photographers are of near equal complexity. Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS)'s Hayabusa spacecraft captured the photo of the surface of the Asteroid Itakawa back in 2005.

Hayabusa actually captured more than just a photograph. The unmanned spacecraft took samples of the asteroid's surface and returned them back to Earth in 2010,the first time man had ever returned surface samples from an asteroid, the BBC reports.

The photos of the surface of Earth's moon and Venus are reminders of the post-mortem "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The photo of the moon's surface was taken by astronauts from Apollo 17 in 1972, the last time humans set foot on Earth's satellite.

Not to be upstaged by the Americans, the Soviet Union launched a probe to Venus, known as Venera 14, in 1981. The probe successfully touched down on the surface of Venus in March of 1982 and survived an astonishing 57 minutes in temperatures exceeding 850 degrees with an atmospheric pressure 94 times that of Earth's in order to snap the picture you see above, NASA reports.

Planetary surface exploration isn't dead, either. The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to land on the surface of a comet come November 12. The lander, known as Philae, will land on the comet, known as Comet 67P, in order to provide further analysis of the environmental and structural features of the surface. The ESA finally reached the comet, which is currently traveling on a 6.5-year-orbit that sees it loop past Jupiter back and back between Earth and Mars, in August after 10 years traveling through space.

ESA will also release the initial findings from the so-called Rosetta mission's analysis of the comet when the Philae landing craft touches down on the surface. That means mankind will likely have an entirely new image to add to the composite photo above.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Vintage NASA Space Program Photos

Liftoff of Space Shuttle Endeavour

Billows of smoke and steam infused with the fiery light from space shuttle Endeavour's launch on the STS-127 mission fill NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A. Endeavour lifted off on the mission's sixth launch attempt, on July 15, 2009 at 6:03 p.m. EDT.