Photography and other imagery of planet Earth from outer space started in the 1940s, first from rockets in suborbital flight, subsequently from satellites around Earth, and then from spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit.
| Image | Date | Craft or mission | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 24, 1946 | 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. | |||
| March 7, 1947 | First dedicated and first published Earth observation images from outer space, first published on March 25, 1947.[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). | |||
| October 5, 1954 | Aerobee AJ10-24RTV-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 .[14] [15] | ||
| February–March 1959 | 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] | ||
| 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 | First television image of Earth from space and first weather satellite picture.[22] | |||
| August 18, 1960 | CORONA | "[F]irst space-based Earth observation system"; its first successful mission was Discoverer 14 on 19 August 1960 with the recovery of photographic film from an orbiting satellite.[23] [24] | ||
| 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] | ||
| May 30, 1966 | Molniya 1-3 | First full-disk pictures of the Earth, published in Review of Popular Astronomy July–August.[31] | ||
| 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] | ||
| December 11, 1966 | ATS-1 | First picture of both Earth and the Moon from the Earth's orbit. | ||
| First full-disk pictures of the Earth from a geostationary orbit.[34] | ||||
| January 1967 | First movie of Earth from space made without a human camera operator (contrast to Titov's 1961 movie) | |||
| April 24, 1967[35] | 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.[36] [37] | ||
| April 30, 1967 | First color image of Earth from another astronomical object's surface, the Moon's surface.[38] | |||
| September 20, 1967 (released November 10th) | First full-disk black-and-white filtered[39] color picture of the Earth. | |||
| November 10, 1967 | ATS-3 | First full-disk "true color"[40] picture of the Earth; subsequently used on the cover of the first Whole Earth Catalog.[41] [42] | ||
| December 21, 1968 | Apollo 8 | First full-disk image of Earth from space taken by a person, probably by astronaut William Anders.[43] | ||
| December 24, 1968 | The first photograph of Earth taken by a human (Frank Borman) from another astronomical object (the Moon).[44] | |||
| The Earthrise image is the first color image of Earth from the Moon by a person (William Anders), moments after Borman's black-and-white photograph. | ||||
| July 21, 1969 | 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.[45] | |||
| First direct image of Earth taken by a person from the surface of another astronomical object (from the Moon), (AS11-40-5923).[46] | ||||
| November 24, 1969 | 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.[47] [48] | |||
| December 7, 1972 | Apollo 17 | First fully illuminated color image of the Earth by a person (AS17-148-22725).[49] This photo was taken just before a second shot with the same perspective was taken, which became cropped and processed the widely used Blue Marble picture (AS17-148-22727).[50] [51] | ||
| July–September 1973 | Skylab 3 | Early color image of an aurora by a human from space.[52] [53] | ||
| 1977 | KH-11 | First real-time satellite imagery.[54] | ||
| September 18, 1977 | Voyager 1 | First full-disk picture of both Earth and the Moon. | ||
| 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.[55] | |||
| December 11, 1990 | Galileo | First movie of a full rotation of Earth.[56] | ||
| 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). | ||
| October 13, 1999 | IKONOS | First commercial high-resolution (sub-meter) satellite photography (non-classified); it made the cover of the New York Times.[57] | ||
| May 8, 2003 13:00 UTC | Mars Global Surveyor | First image of Earth and the Moon from Mars (in orbit); notice South America is visible.[58] | ||
| 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.[59] | ||
| 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.[60] [61] |