'How much to send this to Mars?'

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 | By Tom Banks

The set of six stamps depict The Sun, Saturn and its largest moon Titan, the Lutetia asteroid, and our neighbours Venus and Mars.

All images are taken from missions conducted by the European Space Agency, of which Great Britain is a member.

Osborne Ross Design, a rostered Royal mail consultancy, was given a selection of around 80-100 images acquired by the Royal Mail from the European Space Agency, according to Osborne Ross Design creative director Andrew Ross.

‘Many rule themselves out because you can’t tell what they are, like The Sun shot with a filter so that it looks green,’ says Ross.

‘On a technical point you can only have a certain amount of black, due to sorting and franking procedures,’ he adds.

There is of course ‘a lot of black space’ in space, so Ross has manipulated the photographs to this end.

The stamps will be available in Post offices from 16 October and online at www.royalmail/spacescience.

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