This image of Earth was captured by the MESSENGER spacecraft during a flyby of our home planet on August 2, 2005. Parts of South and North America were in view.
America's first space station was launched forty years ago. Astronauts on Skylab conducted some the first comprehensive visual studies of Earth’s surface.
When the DSCOVR mission was conceived in the late 1990s, one of the central ideas was to provide daily, natural-color views of the entire Earth so that everyday citizens could see it. Seventeen years later, we have that view.
Mt. Everest is the highest (29,035 feet, 8850 meters) mountain in the world. This detailed look at Mt. Everest and Lhotse is part of a more extensive photograph of the central Himalaya taken in October 1993 that is one of the best views of the mountain captured by astronauts to date.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission and the famous
“Blue Marble” full Earth image, Goddard Space Flight Center’s
Visualization and Analysis Lab has rendered a new visualization inspired
by the mission.
View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap.