First photograph of Earth taken from Moon's orbit turns 59

NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 captured the first photograph of Earth from lunar orbit on 23 August 1966, in an unplanned decision that produced one of space exploration's most iconic images.

The spacecraft launched 10 August 1966, with orders to photograph potential landing sites on the lunar surface for future Surveyor and Apollo missions.

The Earth photograph was not part of the original mission plan and only occurred after mission controllers made a spontaneous decision while the probe was already in space.

Taken from approximately 380,000 kilometres away, the image shows half of Earth from Istanbul to Cape Town, with eastern regions in darkness.

Lunar Orbiter 1 carried a sophisticated 68-kilogram Eastman Kodak imaging system using wide-angle lenses with the capability to develop film, scan images and transmit them to Earth.

The camera had originally been developed by the US National Reconnaissance Office for the Samos E-1 spy satellite, a fact not revealed until after the Cold War ended.

The original high-resolution image was never recovered from stored mission data. The Lunar Orbiter Image Retrieval Project finally restored and enhanced the historic photograph in 2008, revealing further details after more than four decades.

NASA deliberately crashed Lunar Orbiter 1 into the lunar surface on 29 October 1966 to prevent interference with future missions. The spacecraft had successfully completed its primary objectives during operations, capturing 205 images of the Moon's surface.