Best pictures of the Earth from deep space

06 junio 2007

1. The Blue Marble (distance: 45.000 kilometers)

The "Blue Marble"is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on 7 December 1972 by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft at a distance of about 45,000 kilometers or about 28,000 miles. It is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.

2. Earthrise (distance: 380.000 kilometers)

Earthrise is the name given to NASA image taken by William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon on December 24, 1968. Apollo 8 did not land on the moon; this picture was taken from orbit.

3. The Earth in the way to Jupiter (distance: 6,2 million kilometers)

On December 16, 1992, 8 days after its encounter with Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million miles) to capture this remarkable view of the Moon in orbit about Earth.

4. The Earth from Mars (distance: 139 million kilometers)

The first image of Earth ever taken from another planet was made on may 8, 2003 by Mars Global Surveyor while orbiting Mars. A year later, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet: a spot in the martian horizon.


5. The Earth from Saturn (distance: 1.500 million kilometers)

On september 15, 2006, Cassini spacecraft took this picture while it was nearly 1.5 billion kilometers (930 million miles) from Earth.

6. Pale Blue Dot (distance: 6.000 million kilometers)

"Pale Blue Dot" is a famous Voyager 1 photograph of planet Earth, showing it situated against the backdrop of the Solar System, as well as the title of a book by astronomer Carl Sagan that was inspired by the photo. And to finish, please don't miss this short film on The Pale Blue Dot narrated by Carl Sagan:

See: ralated video

More info and sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6