Simple facts
What it is: The world’s first photo of Earth from the moon
Where it is: the moon orbit, approximately 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) from Earth
When shared: August 23, 2025 (Originally taken on August 23, 1966)
The first appearance of humanity on Earth from the Moon appeared on August 23, 1966, when this grainy, black and white image showed our planet as a crescent moon above the moon’s horizon, appearing to rise as the camera-carrying spacecraft moved into orbit.
At the time, it was a groundbreaking image, and according to NASA it was completely unplanned. The first view of the Earth from the Moon came from NASA’s Moon Orbiter 1. This sent the image to a tracking station in Robredo de Chavera near Madrid.
The lunar Orbiter 1, the first US spacecraft to orbit the moon, was launched on August 10, 1966 by an Atlas Aena D rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and entered lunar orbit four days later. Designed to photograph potentially safe landing sites on the moon for NASA surveyors and Apollo missions, it was a mapping mission. The spacecraft’s camera system was not very detailed, but even the largest telescope of the time saw far more detailed viewing times than could have been possible from Earth.
The Lunar Orbiter 1 camera, manufactured by Eastman Kodak, featured an automated system that developed exposed film, scanned images, and sent them to the Earth. The camera was originally developed by the National Reconnaissance Bureau and flew a Cold War era Samos spy satellite that was launched by the United States in the 1960s.
Moon Orbiter 1 kept the moon in orbit for 76 days until it intentionally hit the moon on October 29, 1966.
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The Lunar Orbiter 1 camera took photos of nine potential Apollo landing sites and seven backup sites. Earth as Crescent was filmed on August 23, 1966 at 16:35 GMT. When the spacecraft was in its 16th orbit, it was the moment when it moved into the far darkness of the moon.
More than two years later, on Christmas Eve 1968, Bill Anders took the iconic “Earthrise” photo by Bill Anders, the lunar module pilot for Apollo 8, the first lunar orbit mission. This high-resolution color image captured human attention as a cultural milestone, but it was a very similar photograph of the Earth in Orbiter 1, the technical first person, where the crescent moon rises behind the moon appeared.
For sublime space images, see Space Photos in this week’s archives.
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