The first photo of the Earth was taken by NASA 45 years ago.
The instantly recognizable photo of the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon was taken on August 23, 1966. The camera system onboard took up a third of the Lunar Orbiter and allowed 70mm film to be exposed, developed, and processed automatically. The camera system was outfitted with two lenses, one of which took wide angle shots at medium resolution while the other took high resolution images with details as small as five meters.
Five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were sent up to map out the Moon. Images were sent back to Earth where NASA staff could make huge prints. They would lay the images out on the floor and walk on them to find a desirable landing location.
It was during the Lunar Orbiter 1 mission that NASA thought to take a photo of the Earth. Doing this, however, would prove difficult because repositioning the spacecraft could permanently disrupt its flight path. It could have never returned, but NASA concluded that it was worth the risk.
Interestingly, the Lunar Orbiter camera system – though successful – was not used in subsequent missions. This was because NASA crashed each orbiter so that its signal wouldn’t interfere with subsequent orbiters.
