Snapshots of Earth

Explorer VI, 1959 August 7: First crude picture obtained from Explorer VI Earth satellite, 17,000 miles above Mexico. It shows a sun-lighted area of the Central Pacific ocean and its cloud cover.

Lunar Orbiter I, 1966 August 23: The world's first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon.

Mariner 10, 1973 November 4: The Earth and Moon from 2.6 million km while completing the first ever Earth-Moon encounter by a spacecraft capable of returning high resolution digital color image data. These images have been combined at right to illustrate the relative sizes of the two bodies. From this particular viewpoint the Earth appears to be a water planet!

Voyager 1, 1977 September 18: This picture of a crescent-shaped Earth and Moon -- the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft -- was recorded 11.66 million kilometers from Earth from directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude). In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic.

Galileo, 1990 December 11: Taken when the spacecraft was about 1.3 million miles from the planet during the first of two Earth flybys on its way to Jupiter. South America is near the center of the picture, and the white, sunlit continent of Antarctica is below. Picturesque weather fronts are visible in the South Atlantic, lower right.

Galileo, 1992 December 16: Looking back from 6.2 million kilometers, 8 days after its encounter with Earth. The Moon is in the foreground; its orbital path is from left to right. Brightly colored Earth contrasts strongly with the Moon, which reacts only about one-third as much sunlight as our world. At the bottom of Earth's disk, Antarctica is visible through clouds. The Moon's far side can also be seen. The shadowy indentation in the Moon's dawn terminator--the boundary between its dark and lit sides--is the South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest and oldest lunar impact features.

Galileo, 1992: Combination of two separate images by the spacecraft on its way to explore the Jupiter system. The image shows a partial view of the Earth centered on the Pacific Ocean about latitude 20 degrees south. The west coast of South America can be observed as well as the Caribbean; swirling white cloud patterns indicate storms in the southeast Pacific. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the Moon is the Tycho impact basin.

Nozomi, 1998 July 18: Earth and Moon from 535300 km.

Nozomi, 1998 August 29: Full Earth. Up right is North. It shows the evening terminator.

Mars Global Surveyor, 2003 May 8: The first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows our home as a planetary disk. The bright area at the top of the image of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern North America. Below that, a darker area includes Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. The bright feature near the center-right of the crescent Earth consists of clouds over northern South America. The image also shows the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Moon, since the Moon was on the far side of Earth as viewed from Mars. The slightly lighter tone of the lower portion of the image of the Moon results from the large and conspicuous ray system associated with the crater Tycho.

Mars Express, 2003 July 3: The Mars Express spacecraft was pointed backwards to obtain a view of the Earth-Moon system from a distance of 8 million kilometres while on its way to Mars.

Hayabusa, 2004 May 18: Image taken as Hayabusa swung past the Earth on its way to asteroid Itokawa.

MESSENGER, 2005 August 2: This view is centred over Brazil as the spacecraft swooped around Earth.

Cassini, 2006 September 15: Taken from Saturn, nearly 1.5 billion kilometers from Earth. The Earth-and-moon system is visible as a bright blue point on the right side of the image above center. Here, Cassini is looking down on the Atlantic Ocean and the western coast of north Africa. The moon appears as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Seen from the outer solar system through Cassini's cameras, the entire expanse of direct human experience, so far, is nothing more than a few pixels across.

Rosetta, 2007 November 15: After its closest approach to Earth, Rosetta looked back and took a number of images. At the bottom, the continent of Australia can be seen clearly.