Was the "Earthrise" witnessed by Apollo 8 the first available "full" photo of the Earth?

Question

Was the video/photos taken during the earth-rise on the Apollo 8 flight the first "blue marble"-esque photo? I've heard the image equated to the "earth's first selfie" and question the technical accuracy of that premise.

*Note to pedants:

Seeing other similar type questions on the site, please understand the concept of what I'm asking, if not the accuracy. Yes, you can only take, at best, a photo of only half the earth at a given time, and yes, during Apollo 8 the Earth was partially in shadow....

Hmmm, pedantic? That doesn't seem like the best fit. Perhaps donnish is better. — Don Branson, Nov 29 '18 at 18:32
Russel's answer is excellent, but it still is customary to wait 24 hours before clicking the accept checkmark, so other people (no, not me) have a chance to post answers. — DrSheldon, Nov 29 '18 at 21:40
sorry @DrSheldon - new to this particular stack. Although, if a different answer came up that was more accurate, I could simply change the approval — NKCampbell, Nov 29 '18 at 22:02
as an aside - I love questions like this - they always result in lots of interesting and pretty images. — Baldrickk, Nov 30 '18 at 09:41

Russell Borogove · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-29T19:12:00.030

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No; the first full views of Earth from high-altitude satellites predate Apollo 8 by at least two years.

This web page has a nice progression of pictures of Earth from space from 1959 on.

A Soviet satellite (possibly Molniya-1-3) took this crude picture on May 30, 1966:

DODGE took this picture in September of 1967; this is believed to be the first full-color, full-Earth picture:

ATS-III sent this photo in November of 1967, which famously became the cover image for the first edition of the Whole Earth Catalog (Apollo 8's much prettier Earthrise photo adorned later editions):

edited Nov 29 '18 at 19:12

answered Nov 29 '18 at 18:44

Russell Borogove

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The Whole Earth Catalog invented the internet before Al Gore did https://i.stack.imgur.com/30aHe.jpg This was a great book for certain "sitting rooms". – uhoh Nov 29 '18 at 23:52
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What part of Earth is depicted in the first photo? I have a hard time identifying any continents or oceans on it. – d-b Nov 30 '18 at 00:03
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@d-b Most likely the contrast is mostly cloud versus surface, not land versus water (squint at the other pictures to see what I mean). Assuming it’s in a Molniya orbit and near apogee, I’d expect it to be over the middle of greater Russia, but I don’t know which way the image is oriented. – Russell Borogove Nov 30 '18 at 00:07
fyi I've just asked What are damper booms and how did they "get out of DODGE"? – uhoh Nov 30 '18 at 00:30
That first one looks more like a distorted screaming face than it does the Earth... – jpmc26 Dec 01 '18 at 01:29
@d-b somehow it looks like the Indian ocean, with India on the top right and Africa on the left. But I could be imagining this. – Gimelist Dec 01 '18 at 03:43
It's south up. Turn it upside down and you'll be looking at South America with Africa on the right and Central America at the top left – Dave Gremlin Dec 01 '18 at 14:50
@DaveGremlin That’s a mighty narrow Atlantic. – Russell Borogove Dec 01 '18 at 15:09
@Russell Borogrove You can see a similar view from DSCOVR taken this morning. Similar longitude but a lower latitude. Go to https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and find epic_1b_20181130152859 – Dave Gremlin Dec 01 '18 at 16:58

score 21 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 30 '18 at 07:17

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Although not a blue marble as it's in black and white, Lunar Orbiter 1 took an earlier Earthrise photo on August 23, 1966. This is the first picture of the Earth from Lunar orbit.

In 2008, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project produced a higher-quality version of this image by reanalyzing the original data.

Lunar Orbiter 1 also took a second Earthrise picture on Aug. 25, 1966 (restored version shown.)

answered Nov 30 '18 at 07:17

David Moews

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Thank you so much for this. This is the first time I heard of LOIRP and the restored images quite literally made me shudder and get goosebumps... it is amazing to see the high-res images and to realise that Nancy Evans's decision rescued this treasure of data. This for me ranks with the Prokudin-Gorsky image bank. – MichaelK Nov 30 '18 at 14:50

Was the "Earthrise" witnessed by Apollo 8 the first available "full" photo of the Earth?

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