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Voyager 1 accomplished this unprecedented feat in 2012, and its twin followed suit six years later.

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They cruised through the outer solar system and eventually popped free of the sun's sphere of influence into interstellar space. Related: Earth quiz: Do you really know your planet? Still exploringīoth Voyagers kept flying long after February 1990. It's almost as if the cosmos threw a spotlight onto our precious little world for a moment, to help us make it out in the abyss. That beam of scattered light may have briefly stopped Hansen's heart, but it adds a certain poetic flair to the Pale Blue Dot photo. So, it was such a relief when I spotted it.' And then I was so afraid that we had missed it, or screwed up the exposure or something. 'Because of that beam of scattered light, it didn't pop out at me immediately. 'It was actually kind of terrifying, because I didn't see it at first,' she said. Hansen couldn't wait to see our planet through Voyager 1's eyes - and, when she finally got the chance, doing so proved a bit more difficult than she had expected. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)Īll of the image data didn't come down to Earth until May 1, 1990, NASA officials wrote in a Pale Blue Dot explainer. (Mercury was too close to the sun to be imaged, and sunlight bouncing around in the camera blocked Mars out.)Īn artist's illustration showing where Voyager 1 and the planets were when the spacecraft took the iconic 'Pale Blue Dot' image.

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The probe took a 'family portrait' series of 60 photos, capturing the sun, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in addition to Earth. And not just its home planet - its home system. Mission team members decided to turn off the two probes' cameras to save precious power during the long journey (and because they probably wouldn't have many chances to photograph interesting things out beyond Neptune anyway).īut Voyager 1 turned around to take one last look at home before closing its eyes. But the two spacecraft kept on flying, out toward the great unknown of interstellar space. The tour was over after the Neptune encounter, which Voyager 2 executed in August 1989. Together, the two probes conducted an unprecedented 'grand tour' of the solar system's giant planets, flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 launched a few weeks after its twin, Voyager 2, back in 1977. They were 80,000km and seven hours away from safety – this photo captures this stolen moment, yearning for home.The 'Family Portrait of the Solar System' series of images taken by Voyager 1 before its camera shut down. This ethereal photo (below), at first appears to show the Moon, but it is really the crescent Earth amidst the ghostly reflections of the Lunar Module.

Two days in, the craft suffered a dramatic explosion, venting the contents of the Service Module’s oxygen tanks into space, leaving the Command Module without enough breathable air to get home. I chose it for the cover of my book The Precipice, which looks at humanity’s own fragility in these challenging times.Īnother one of my favourite photos is from Apollo 13. It was overlooked for years as the original negative was poorly exposed and washed out.īut as soon as I properly adjusted the levels, it took my breath away, revealing a haunting scene with an even more graceful and fragile view of the Earth and Moon than Apollo 8’s famous ‘Earthrise’ photo. It was captured by Richard Gordon as he circled the Moon alone in the Command Module, awaiting his companions’ return. One of my favourite hidden gems is the crescent earthrise from Apollo 12 (above).

It was these lost images of Apollo that were the real rivals to the most well-known ones.Ī lesser-known crescent earthrise, captured during Apollo 12 on 19 November 1969.

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I hunted through all 18,000 Hasselblad photos from the Apollo missions for the best images that time forgot, and digitally restored them to bring out their full glory. So began a journey that would occupy my evenings over the next three years. Struck by the beauty of the most famous photographs, I wondered if there were more. And that jewel of Earth was just hung up in the blackness of space.' Restoring the Apollo Earth photographs 'Oceans were crystal blue, the land was brown, and the clouds and the snow were pure white. 'I was able to look out the window to see this incredible sight of the whole circle of the Earth,' said Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke. Instead, it is primarily a world of blue and white, with brown continents and just a suggestion of muted green in places of lush vegetation: If we look at this image from Apollo 16 (above), what we see isn’t the bright green and blue circle that has come to represent our planet. A remarkable view of Earth from Apollo 16, taken on 16 April 1972, reveals a world of blue and white with a hint of brown.

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