The first images of the earth
This was the first image of the Earth taken from orbit, taken by the Explorer 6 satellite in 1959. NASA
The first image of the Earth taken from orbit was in 1959. The satellite that captured the images was called Explorer 6 and became the first satellite to capture images of the Earth. When Explorer 6 took its first images of the Earth, it was 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. Up to that point, no one had seen Earth from such a distance, however this record will soon be broken as the Space Race begins. In 1966, NASA launched its first lunar orbiter, called the Lunar Orbiter 1. It became the first satellite launched by the United States into orbit around the moon, and also took the first images of the Earth from the moon at a distance of 239,000 miles (384,000 kilometers). Two years later, in 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts became the first people to photograph the Earth from the moon. A year later, Apollo 11 astronauts became the first people to photograph the Earth from the surface of the moon. The surface of the Moon is the farthest distance that humans have naturally taken pictures of the Earth, however robotic spacecraft have far exceeded this distance.
The image of the pale blue dot
The Pale Blue Dot image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft 3.7 billion miles away. The Earth appears to be a small spot on the right. NASA
In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft. NASA took advantage of a rare planetary alignment that saw all the outer gas giants together. This meant that a spacecraft could visit each of the four planets, while also using the gravitational pull of each planet to launch at a higher speed. Both Voyager visited Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 continued to visit Uranus and Poseidon afterwards. As Voyager 1 continued toward the outer regions of the solar system, astronomers realized they had an amazing opportunity. In 1990, while Voyager 1 was 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away, astronomers decided to point the spacecraft’s cameras at the solar system and take a picture of each planet. At such a vast distance, Voyager 1 could see every planet in the solar system, all of which seemed like distant points of light. The combination of each image produced a mosaic of the entire solar system that became known as the Family Portrait. However, perhaps the most important image captured by Voyager 1 was that of Earth. Voyager 1 captured an image of the entire Earth from a distance of 3.7 billion miles, making it the farthest image our planet has ever taken. The image was named Pale Blue Dot. In this advantage, the Earth looks as small as a piece of dust, caught in a sunbeam.
Aidan Remple July 1, 2022 in Science
