This is the first (correctly-exposed) photograph of Earth taken by a human from space, captured 64 years ago today by NASA astronaut John Glenn from inside his Friendship 7 capsule during the Mercury-Atlas 6 orbital mission on February 20, 1962.
Jason Major
@jpmajor.bsky.social
I post cool pictures of stuff in space. (Everything is in space.)
The detail of Earth 🌍 captured in Bill Anders’ first color photo taken from lunar orbit on #christmaseve in 1968 #OTD really is amazing. This is a crop of AS08-14-2383, in its original orientation, from a scanned 70mm @nasa film original 16-bit TIFF file by a project team at Arizona State University
This is the silhouette of 1,122-km-wide Dione in front of Saturn—a view captured with Cassini 15 years ago on December 20, 2010. Synthesized color from a single clear-filter greyscale image.
Space Shuttle Challenger in orbit during STS-7 in June 1983
45 years ago today we got our first closeup of the Solar System’s very own “Death Star!” Captured by Voyager 1 on November 12, 1980 as it passed Saturn, this image (PIA01968) shows the moon Mimas with its 139 km wide, 5 km deep Herschel crater making it resemble the Empire’s infamous space station.
On November 10, 1967 #OTD NASA captured its first color picture of the entire daylit side of Earth from space using the Multicolor Spin-Scan Cloudcover Camera on the ATS-3 weather satellite from an altitude of about 22,000 miles. (More on the MSSCC here: journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...)
This is what the band of the Milky Way would look like at night if your eyes could see radio waves. A hidden beauty. It's a new image created by the Murchison Widefield Array, which scanned the sky in 20 radio "colors" over frequencies from 72 to 231 megahertz. 🧪🔭 www.icrar.org/gleam-x-gala...
While shooting the moonrise last night (since the eastern horizon was relatively free of clouds) I did get to capture another nice green flash along the Moon's upper limb. (Really more of a wavering flicker than a flash, but it was visible through the viewfinder.) 📸🌖
Jupiter's colorful, lava-coated moon Io imaged by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on October 16, 2001
Dione in front of Saturn, captured by Cassini 20 years ago today on October 11, 2005 🌖🪐
A little bit of the "green flash" captured during Sunday night's sunset
The Moon and Earth together captured with a camera aboard the ESA European Service Module during NASA's Artemis I mission on November 28, 2022. The spacecraft was about 42,000 miles beyond the Moon when this picture was taken.🌖🌍
The Sun eclipsed by the Moon—a photo captured in the midst of the brief period of totality during the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse.
Cassini's final full view of Saturn 🪐 a mosaic comprising 11 color-composites captured by the spacecraft in visible light filters on September 13, 2017. The following day it dove into Saturn's atmosphere, ending its mission after 13 years in orbit.
Io in front of Jupiter. This is a color-composite made from images captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in red, green, and violet wavelengths on September 6, 1996. Io is the most volcanically-active world in our solar system.
If we equate Earth with the scale size of a basketball, the Moon would be about the size of a tennis ball, 24 feet (7.3 m) away. 🌎🌖 The Sun would be a sphere 86 feet (26 m) wide—about the height of an 8-story building—1.8 miles (2.9 km) away. 🌞
This is a closeup of the 1909 Lincoln penny that's been on Mars as part of Curiosity's MAHLI calibration target for almost 13 years
Fun fact: all of the other planets in the Solar System—and Pluto too—lined up edge-to-edge (not including any rings) could fit between Earth and the Moon
The crescent Moon with earthshine next to the Pleiades tonight 🌒✨
Saturn's moon Mimas with the 139 km wide Herschel crater positioned dead-center along the terminator, imaged by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on March 20, 2006
Blue Ghost's landing on the Moon in Mare Crisium captured by NASA's SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies) cameras Source: www.nasa.gov/general/nasa...
"Images downlinked from Athena on the lunar surface confirmed that Athena was on her side. After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones[...]before the lander’s batteries depleted." intuitivemachines.com/im-2 Ad luna per aspera 🫤
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander on the surface from a distance of about 190 km on March 2, 2025 about 9 hours after touchdown. (Source: lroc.asu.edu/images/1406; image upscaled, my edit.)
This is wonderful—an orbital Earth set and rise from Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander as it passed behind the Moon on February 18 🌕🌍 (watch in 2160 HD if you can) youtu.be/kB66ECu4kL8?...
Earth rise, Earth set, repeat!
YouTube video by Firefly Aerospace
youtu.be
On November 11, 1935, the National Geographic/Army Air Corps-operated Explorer II mission launched a balloon with a pressurized gondola to a record altitude of 72,395 ft. The two-man crew captured the first photos showing the division of the troposphere and stratosphere, and Earth's curved horizon.
A view of the Moon's far (but not dark!) side captured by Firefly Space's Blue Ghost lander from lunar orbit on February 18, 2025 youtu.be/pSGBJNu1xE4
Lunar Orbit Fly By
YouTube video by Firefly Aerospace
youtu.be
41 years ago today: Bruce McCandless piloted his Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) nearly 100 meters away from Space Shuttle Challenger during STS-41B. Iconic shuttle era moment!
