QUICK FACTS
What it’s: The world’s first photograph of Earth from the moon
The place it’s: Lunar orbit, about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) from Earth
When it was shared: Aug. 23, 2025 (initially taken Aug. 23, 1966)
Humanity’s first have a look at Earth from the moon did not come till Aug. 23, 1966, when this grainy, black-and-white picture confirmed our planet as a crescent above the lunar horizon, showing to rise because the camera-toting spacecraft moved in orbit.
On the time, it was a landmark picture — and completely unplanned, in accordance with NASA. The primary view of Earth from the moon got here from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1, which transmitted the picture to a monitoring station at Robledo De Chavela close to Madrid.
Lunar Orbiter 1, the primary U.S. spacecraft to orbit the moon, launched on an Atlas-Agena D rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Aug. 10, 1966, and entered lunar orbit 4 days later. It was on a cartographic mission, designed to {photograph} doubtlessly secure touchdown websites on the moon for NASA’s Surveyor and Apollo missions, in accordance with NASA. Though the spacecraft’s digicam system wasn’t extremely detailed, it took much more detailed views from lunar orbit than have been attainable from Earth by way of even the most important telescopes on the time.
Lunar Orbiter 1’s digicam, manufactured by Eastman Kodak, featured an automatic system that developed uncovered movie, scanned the photographs, and transmitted them to Earth. The digicam was initially developed by the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace and was flown on the Chilly Struggle-era Samos spy satellites that have been launched by the U.S. within the Sixties, in accordance with NASA.
Lunar Orbiter 1 orbited the moon for 76 days till it intentionally crashed into the moon on Oct. 29, 1966.
Associated: James Webb telescope captures one of many deepest-ever views of the universe
Lunar Orbiter 1’s digicam snapped pictures of 9 potential Apollo touchdown websites and 7 backup websites. Earth as a crescent was photographed Aug. 23, 1966, at 16:35 GMT, when the spacecraft was on its sixteenth orbit, moments earlier than it handed into the darkness of the moon’s far facet.
Over two years later, on Christmas Eve, 1968, Invoice Anders, a lunar module pilot on Apollo 8, the primary lunar orbit mission, snapped the long-lasting “Earthrise” photograph. This higher-resolution coloration picture captured humanity’s consideration as a cultural milestone, nevertheless it was Lunar Orbiter 1’s very related photograph of Earth as a crescent rising behind the moon, taken over two years earlier, that was the technical first.
For extra elegant area photos, take a look at our Area Photograph of the Week archives.
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