Photo of the Day

The first photo from space

Saturday 24 October 2026

Taken on this day in 1946.

Grainy black-and-white photo of the curve of the Earth seen from high above, streaks of cloud over the ground and the black of space beyond — Photograph · 24 October 1946

Earth from about 105 km (65 miles) up, taken on 24 October 1946 by a 35mm movie camera riding a captured German V-2 rocket launched from White Sands, New Mexico. No one had ever seen Earth from this high.

Fun facts

The camera shot frame after frame as the rocket climbed. source ↗
The rocket slammed back into the desert, but the film survived inside a steel cassette. source ↗
That peak altitude was about five times higher than any photo taken before. source ↗
It came 11 years before Sputnik and about 14 and a half years before the first person reached space. source ↗

Image: U.S. Army / White Sands Missile Range, Applied Physics Laboratory
Licence: Public domain
Source: Wikimedia Commons