Stephen Tyler

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.

45 years ago, the first photo of Earth from space was taken

Like No Other View On Earth

On 23 August 1966, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photo of Earth from the moon’s orbit, and it forever changed how we see our home planet.

In this day and age, it is easy to be a bit blasé about robotics and remote cameras, but this was all performed without a digital sensor or computer.  The image was first exposed onto photographic film, the film developed, and then scanned and transmitted back to earth.  All without any digital electronics – pure analog and chemical:

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