The first ever image of Earth taken by a space probe from lunar orbit was recorded on August 23, 1966. (Image: NASA) KEY DETAILS
The gist: The world's first photograph of our planet taken from the surface of the Moon.
Location: Orbit of the Moon, approximately 239,000 miles (385,000 km) from Earth.
Publication date: August 23, 2025 (original footage taken August 23, 1966)
Humanity first saw Earth from a lunar perspective on August 23, 1966, when this noisy monochrome image captured our planet as a crescent moon above the lunar horizon, creating the illusion of rising as the spacecraft moved through orbit.
The photo was a historic event of its time and, according to NASA, was completely improvised. The first photo of Earth from the Moon was transmitted by the Lunar Orbiter 1 device, which sent data to the tracking station in Robledo de Chavela near Madrid.
Launched on August 10, 1966, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard an Atlas-Agena D rocket, Lunar Orbiter 1 became the first American probe to reach lunar orbit four days later. The craft's primary mission, according to NASA, was to map potential landing zones for the Surveyor and Apollo programs. Despite its limited camera resolution, it provided more detailed images of the lunar surface than Earth-based telescopes of the era could provide.
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The Lunar Orbiter 1 imaging system, built by Eastman Kodak, included an automated process for processing film, scanning images, and transmitting them to Earth. The technology, NASA notes, was originally developed by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and used on the SAMOS spy satellites of the Cold War.
The spacecraft operated in lunar orbit for 76 days before its planned impact with the surface on October 29, 1966.
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The probe's cameras recorded nine primary and seven alternate landing zones for the Apollo program. The famous image of the Earth's crescent was obtained on August 23, 1966, at 16:35 GMT during the 16th orbital revolution, just before the craft entered the Moon's shadow zone.
Two years later, on Christmas Eve 1968, astronaut Bill Anders captured the iconic “Earthrise” image from Apollo 8. The high-quality color image became a cultural phenomenon, but the technical first was the nearly identical image taken earlier by Lunar Orbiter 1.
More impressive space photos are available in our “Best Space Photos of the Week” section.
TAGS space photo of the week
Jamie Carter, Social Media, Live Science Contributor
Jamie Carter is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor from Wales. He is the author of The Ultimate Guide to the Stars and a lecturer on astronomy and natural history. His work has appeared in Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Scientific American and elsewhere. He is the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com.
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