He led several American missions to understand the moon and planets. He was the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., from 1954-76. Finally, the $3.60 denomination at the bottom part of the rocket depicts the rocket scientist William Pickering (1910-2004). He discovered two comets and a supernova. He built his own telescope in 1948 and studied more than 500,000 stars. A $3 stamp honours Albert Jones who is termed as a visual astronomer. He used mathematics to discover that the MoonвЂ™s craters were made by meteorite impact.

A $2.40 stamp honours Charles Gifford (1861-1948) who is considered to be one of the greatest astronomers of New Zealand.

A $1.20 stamp honours Alan Gilmore and Pamela Kilmartin who discovered 41 minor planets. Meteor dust is affixed around the portrait on the stamp. She became the first female professor of astronomy at Yale University in 1978. The nose cone of the rocket is a $1.20 domestic-rate stamp honouring the noted cosmologist Beatrice Hill Tinsley (1941-81). The five stamps are se-tenant in a vertical strip and are designed like a rocket. A souvenir sheet printed with lenticular 3D effect will also be released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. New Zealand is going to honour the countryвЂ™s astronauts and space experts by releasing five special postage stamps dusted with particles of a meteorite on 1st May.

Us solar system stamp sheet