Happy Earth Day! To celebrate our amazing world, here are some amazing views of our blue planet from outer space:
The first photograph of our Earth from space was taken in 1946. Unfortunately, the beaut could not fit in the whole field of view! (Image credit: White Sands Missile Range / Applied Physics Laboratory)
With some stitching magic, the first pictures of Earth from an altitude greater than 100 miles were published in 1947. (Image credit: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
The first full color view of our planet was taken by the ATS-3 satellite in 1967. This could have been prompted by Stewart Brand‘s campaign to have NASA release an image of the entire earth from space. He sold buttons (¢ 25) with the words: “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” and used the image above as a cover for his Whole Earth Catalog. (Image credit: ATS-3 / NASA)
Earthrise, as seen from the moon. I’m running out of words here, just enjoy the views! (Image credit: Apollo 8 / NASA)
The Blue Marble, 1972. Taken from about 29,000 km (18,000 miles) from the surface by the Apollo 17 crew on its way to the moon. (Image credit: Apollo 17 / NASA)
A final picture from 1990 to make you feel small. We are that Pale Blue Dot seen in the right band of sunlight reflected by the camera. The Voyager 1 space probe captured this image at a distance of about 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) from earth.
Inspired by a talk by Dr. Oliver Fraser I attended at the Theodor Jacobsen Observatory (University of Washington)
