Timeline of first images of Earth from space

Photography and other imagery of planet Earth from outer space^[a] started in the 1940s, first from rockets in suborbital flight, subsequently from satellites around Earth, and then from spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit.

Timeline

Image	Date	Craft or mission	Event
	October 24, 1946	V-2	First images of Earth from outer space,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] flight monitoring continuous imaging, resulting in a time-lapse-movie reel. Not published as Earth observation images until 1950.[9] Taken by the V-2 No. 13 suborbital spaceflight, the eighth successful US spaceflight and one of the first over-all.
	March 7, 1947		First dedicated and first published Earth observation images from outer space, first published on March 25, 1947.[9][10][11][12]
	July 26, 1948		First prepared wide-angle panorama of Earth from outer space (the 1946 flight did already record a panorama swing).[citation needed]
	October 5, 1954	Aerobee AJ10-24 RTV-N-10b	The first color image from space as part in the left corner of this first color photomosaic of Earth from space,[13] composed of 117 images taken from an altitude of 100 miles (160 km).[14][15]
[image needed]	February–March 1959	Vanguard 2	First attempt of a scanner, in which a single photocell mounted at the focus of telescope would scan Earth due to the satellite movement; resulting images were poor.[16]
	August 14, 1959	Explorer 6	First image of Earth from orbit, showing a sunlit area of the Central Pacific Ocean and its cloud cover.[17][18][19][20]
[image needed]	1959	Explorer 7	The first "coarse maps of the solar radiation reflected by the Earth and the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth", from a mission launched on October 13, 1959.[21]
	1960	TIROS-1	First television image of Earth from space and first weather satellite picture.[22]
	August 18, 1960	CORONA	"First space-based Earth observation system";[23] its first successful mission was Discoverer 14 on 19 August 1960 with the recovery of photographic film from an orbiting satellite.[23][24]
External image [image needed]	August 6, 1961	Vostok 2	First image, color images and movie of Earth from space taken by a person, by cosmonaut Gherman Titov – the first photographer from space.[25][26]
	1963	KH-7 Gambit	First high-resolution (sub-meter spatial resolution) satellite photography (classified).[27]
	1964	Quill	First radar images of Earth from space, using a synthetic aperture radar (SAR).[28] This shows part of Richmond, Virginia.
	March 18, 1965	Voskhod 2	First image and movie of Earth with a human (Alexei Leonov) floating in space (the first ever EVA).[29]
	March 18, 1965	Voskhod 2	First drawing of Earth from space and art made in space (by Leonov, the first artist in space).[30]
External image [image needed]	May 30, 1966	Molniya 1-3	First full-disk pictures of the Earth, published in Review of Popular Astronomy July–August.[31][20]
	August 23, 1966	Lunar Orbiter 1	First image of Earth from another astronomical object (the Moon) and first picture of both Earth and the Moon from space.[32][33][34][7][19] The image (frame 1102; image 102 of Lunar Orbiter 1) consists of three parts h1-h3.[35] Since its original publication its raw analog data has been used to digitally produce the image (incl. its wide angle version) in higher resolution (see) and clarity (see).[36]
	December 11, 1966	ATS-1	First picture of both Earth and the Moon from the Earth's orbit.[37]
			First full-disk pictures of the Earth from a geostationary orbit.[37]
[image needed]	January 1967		First movie of Earth from space made without a human camera operator (contrast to Titov's 1961 movie)[37]
	April 24, 1967[38]	Surveyor 3	First images and view of a sunset and sunrise over Earth at the same time, a solar eclipse by Earth (a celestial body other than the Moon), from the Moon's surface.[39][40]
	April 30, 1967		First color image of Earth from the surface of another astronomical object, from the Moon's surface.[41]
	September 20, 1967 (released November 10th)[42]	DODGE	First full-disk black-and-white filtered[42] color picture of the Earth.[6]
	November 10, 1967	ATS-3	First full-disk "true color"[43] picture of the Earth;[44] subsequently used on the cover of the first Whole Earth Catalog.[45][44]
External image 13 X 18 cm image	September 14, 1968	Zond-5	Black-and-white image of a half-disk of the Earth with Africa and Arabian Peninsula clearly visible.[46][47] The images were taken approximately 90 000km away from Earth. They were taken on the film camera with 400mm focal length.
	December 21, 1968 (December solstice)	Apollo 8	First full-disk image of Earth from space taken by a person (astronaut William Anders)[48]
	December 24, 1968		The first photograph of Earth taken by a person (William Anders)[49] from another astronomical object (the Moon).[50][51] For a colorized version see this image.
			The Earthrise image is the first color image of Earth by a person (William Anders) from the moon,[33][6][19] moments after his black-and-white photograph.
	July 21, 1969	Apollo 11	The much reproduced full frame image AS11-40-5903 of Buzz Aldrin, happens to be the first indirect image of Earth taken by a person from the surface of another astronomical object (from the Moon), having by accident in his visor a reflection of Earth.[52]
			First direct image of Earth taken by a person from the surface of another astronomical object (from the Moon), (AS11-40-5923).[20][53]
	November 24, 1969	Apollo 12	First images (black-and-white and 16mm color film) of a solar eclipse with the Earth, taken by a human, when the Apollo 12 spacecraft aligned its view of the Sun with the Earth.[54][55]
	December 7, 1972	Apollo 17	First fully illuminated color image of the Earth by a person (AS17-148-22725).[56] This photo was taken just before another picture was taken with the same perspective, which cropped and processed became the widely used Blue Marble picture (AS17-148-22727).[57][58]
	July–September, 1973	Skylab 3	Early color image of an aurora by a human from space.[59][60]
	November, 1973 (components) / 1999 (composition)	Mariner 10	Mariner took the first high resolution digital color images of Earth from heliocentric orbit in interplanetary space at 2.6 million kilometers, as in this mosaic and composite size comparison image of Earth and the Moon produced in 1999 with images from Mariner 10.[61]
[image needed]	1977	KH-11	First real-time satellite imagery.[62]
	September 18, 1977	Voyager 1	First full-disk picture and first single frame picture of Earth and the Moon together.[37]
	February 14, 1990		The Pale Blue Dot is the first image of Earth from beyond all of the other Solar System planets. It is part of the first picture of the full extent of the planetary system, known as the Family Portrait.[19][63]
	December 11, 1990	Galileo	First interplanetary fly-by image of Earth during the second ever Earth fly-by,[64] which is also the first frame of the first movie of a full rotation of Earth.[65]
External image [image needed]	August 11, 1999	Mir EO-27 (Perseus)	First view of the shadow of the Moon projected onto Earth during a total solar eclipse (photograph taken by Jean-Pierre Haigneré).[55]
External image [image needed]	October 13, 1999	IKONOS	First commercial high-resolution (sub-meter) satellite photography (non-classified); it made the cover of the New York Times.[66]
	May 8, 2003 13:00 UTC	Mars Global Surveyor	First image of Earth (and the Moon) from another planet (in orbit around Mars);[67] notice South America is visible.[33][6]
	March 11, 2004	Spirit Mars Exploration rover	First image taken of Earth from the surface of Mars and any celestial body other than the Moon.
	July 27, 2006	Cassini-Huygens	The Pale Blue Orb is the first image of Earth from Saturn.[68]
	October 8, 2014	MESSENGER	The first image of Earth's shadow causing a lunar eclipse from another planet. Taken from Mercury (in orbit) of the October 2014 lunar eclipse.[69][70]
	August 9, 2021	Parker Solar Probe	Image and video of Earth from within the outer Solar corona, from the second time that any probe has ever reached the corona.[71]
External image	April 20, 2023	Hakuto-R	Shadow of the Moon on Earth viewed from the Moon.[72]
	September 5, 2024	Curiosity	First image of Earth with Phobos (from the surface of Mars).[73]

See also

• List of notable images of Earth from space
• Aerial photography – Taking images of the ground from the air
• Earth observation – Information about the Earth environment, remote or in situ
• Earth in culture – Cultural perspectives about Earth
• Earth phase – Phases of Earth as seen from the Moon
• Extraterrestrial sky – Extraterrestrial view of outer space
• Overview effect – Cognitive shift after seeing Earth from space
• Satellite imagery – Images taken from an artificial satellite
• Space selfie – Self-portrait photo taken in outer space
• View of Earth from Mars – Extraterrestrial view of outer spacePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Notes

1. Within the context of this timeline, outer space is considered as starting at the Kármán line, 100 kilometres (62 miles) above mean sea level (AMSL).