Forty years after the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the descent stage of the Eagle lunar module.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory captured a unique view of the Moon as it passed between the spacecraft and Earth. The Artemis mission will soon take us back for closeups.
When the Apollo 11 astronauts left the surface of the Moon on July 21, 1969, they brought home samples of solar wind particles, lunar rocks and dirt, and a big helping of perspective.
After waiting out a thunderstorm, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite rocketed off the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 5:32 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on June 18, 2009. This photograph captures the pair of spacecraft as they were lifting off.
Long before man journeyed to the moon and looked back at the tiny, fragile planet that houses humanity, lunar orbiters were sending back pictures of home.
In October 2013, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past the Earth to steal some energy for a ride to Jupiter. Along the way, it also stole some glimpses of home.
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.