When we talk about the 10 stories behind the most unforgettable pictures of our planet taken from orbit, we are really talking about the moments that turned a simple snapshot into a piece of history. From meteors streaking across the night sky to the first selfie ever taken beyond our atmosphere, each image carries a narrative that reshapes how we see Earth.
10 Stories Behind These Iconic Space Shots
10 A Shooting Star Seen From Above
When you picture a shooting star, you probably imagine yourself lying on a grassy field, eyes glued to the heavens as a bright fireball darts overhead. That mental image is perfectly natural because, for most of us, meteors are observed from the ground.
However, on 13 August 2011, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) captured a photograph of Earth while the station passed over China. The picture is remarkable because it shows a tiny streak of light cutting through the planet’s atmosphere from a bird’s‑eye view.
The astronaut shared the shot on Twitter, captioning it: “What a ‘Shooting Star’ looks like from space, taken yesterday during Perseid Meteor Shower.” The streak was indeed a bright meteor belonging to the annual Perseid shower, which dazzles observers each August. Since 2016, a dedicated camera on the ISS has been monitoring the Perseids, producing crystal‑clear videos that help scientists study meteor composition without the distortion caused by Earth’s atmosphere.
9 Floating With The Whole World Below
The story behind this awe‑inspiring image isn’t just about a spectacular view of Earth; it also highlights a daring technological experiment. In 1984, NASA tested a prototype space‑jetpack known as the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). During February of that year, astronaut Bruce McCandless flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger to trial the device.
After conducting a series of tests inside the shuttle, McCandless ventured into the void with the MMU strapped to his back. On 7 February 1984, he became the first human to perform a completely untethered spacewalk, drifting roughly 98 metres (320 ft) away from the shuttle. A panoramic photograph taken from Challenger captured this moment, showing only McCandless, his jetpack, and the deep black of space with the blue Earth glowing beneath him.
Before his death in December 2017, McCandless told National Geographic that he never paused to stare directly down at the planet during his flight, though he did realize he was passing over Florida. He also noted that witnessing the whole Earth from such a perspective profoundly altered his view of humanity’s arbitrary divisions.
8 Light And Darkness
Following the Korean War’s armistice in 1953, both the North and South started on roughly equal economic footing. While South Korea’s economy surged in the subsequent decades, the North fell into chronic poverty.
In the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union cut off a vital fuel supply to North Korea, a nation already strained by a devastating famine. This loss crippled the country’s energy infrastructure. The stark contrast between the two Koreas is starkly visible from space. In January 2014, an ISS astronaut photographed the Korean Peninsula at night.
The upper portion of the image shows China, while South Korea shines brightly in the lower right. Between them lies an almost entirely dark region that blends seamlessly with the surrounding seas—this is North Korea. The capital, Pyongyang, does emit a small glow, but it pales in comparison to the numerous, more luminous towns scattered across South Korea. When the image was released, North Korean officials claimed that “the essence of our society is not in flashy lights,” yet their leader, Kim Jong Un, urged citizens to work toward restoring reliable electricity.
7 The First Space Selfie
Selfies are a daily habit for billions of people, with more than a million taken each day worldwide. Usually, they’re snapped in picturesque locations on Earth, but a few lucky individuals have managed to capture a selfie with the entire planet as a backdrop.
In November 1966, NASA’s Gemini 12 mission tested the ability of astronauts to dock with another spacecraft. One of the crew members was Buzz Aldrin, later famed as the second man to walk on the Moon.During the mission, Aldrin spent a record‑breaking five and a half hours outside the spacecraft. The crew had a camera on board for mission documentation, but Aldrin decided to try it on himself. They rotated the spacecraft to a right‑angle, shut off the thrusters to avoid flashes, and opened the hatch. Aldrin positioned himself in his seat, aimed the camera forward, and snapped a picture of himself against the vastness of space with Earth filling the background.
This iconic “space selfie” later sold at auction for $9,200 in 2015, cementing its place in both space history and pop culture.
6 Blue Marbles
During the final crewed mission to the Moon to date—Apollo 17—the astronauts Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ron Evans launched on the night of 7 December 1972. Their journey required strict focus on spacecraft operations, leaving little room for casual observation.
However, when the crew was roughly 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi) from Earth, one astronaut couldn’t resist turning back to gaze at the home planet. Using the only camera at hand, they captured what became known as “The Blue Marble,” the first full‑color image of the entire Earth.
The photo made headlines worldwide and entered the public domain, quickly becoming perhaps the most reproduced picture ever taken. The crew never agreed on who actually pressed the shutter. Decades later, NASA’s DSCOVR satellite, launched in 2015, provided a new, continuous view of the sun‑lit side of Earth, delivering fresh “Blue Marble”‑style images.
5 Eclipses As Seen From Space
Solar eclipses occur roughly once every 18 months at any given spot on Earth, and astronauts have captured several from orbit. For instance, the now‑defunct Mir station photographed a total eclipse in August 1999. A more recent example is the August 21 2017 eclipse that swept across North America.
This eclipse was partial across the entire United States and total in 14 states, drawing massive public and scientific interest. NASA leveraged its DSCOVR satellite—positioned about 1.6 million kilometres (1 million mi) away—to capture a sequence of 12 images showing the Moon’s shadow moving across Earth’s daylight side.
Normally DSCOVR snaps around 20 pictures per day, but for this event the instruments were set to capture more frequently, producing a rapid‑motion video of the eclipse’s progression across the visible hemisphere. The footage, though sped up, offers a unique perspective on a phenomenon usually experienced from a single point on the ground.
4 A Pale Blue Dot
In 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft to explore the outer planets. Thirteen years later, Voyager 1 was venturing toward the edge of the solar system.
On 14 February 1990, engineers commanded the spacecraft’s camera to take a final “portrait” of the solar system. From an astonishing distance of about 6.4 billion kilometres (4 billion mi)—far beyond any human‑made object—the probe captured 60 photographs, one of which includes Earth as a tiny speck.
Earth appears as a faint blue‑white dot, merely 0.12 pixels in size, set against the glare of the Sun’s light. In 1994, astronomer Carl Sagan reflected on this image in his book, coining the phrase “Pale Blue Dot.” He wrote, “Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of … lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
3 When A Satellite Discovered A Deadly Island
NASA’s Landsat program began with the launch of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS‑1) in 1972, the first satellite dedicated to photographing Earth’s surface. In 1973, researcher Elizabeth Fleming examined the newly transmitted images, searching for previously uncharted islands off Canada’s coast.
While scanning the remote northern coast of Labrador—a region not mapped since 1911—Fleming noticed several white spots that initially seemed like icebergs. Upon closer inspection, she realized they were small landmasses. One particular feature, about 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) offshore, stood out: a 25 m × 45 m (82 ft × 148 ft) land patch, qualifying as an island.
In 1976, Canadian hydrographer Dr Frank Hall was dispatched to verify the discovery. Lowered by a helicopter onto the icy island, Hall was startled when a polar bear, camouflaged by its white fur, lunged toward him. He managed to retreat safely, narrowly avoiding what could have been a deadly encounter. The island was eventually named Landsat Island in 1979, honoring the satellite that first revealed its existence.
2 The First Photo Taken From Space
Before the mid‑20th century, humanity’s highest viewpoint was limited to high‑altitude balloons, reaching roughly 22 kilometres (13.7 mi). That changed dramatically in 1946 when captured German V‑2 rockets were repurposed for scientific research.
One such V‑2, stripped of its warhead and equipped with a camera that snapped a frame every 1.5 seconds, ascended on 24 October 1946 to an altitude of 105 kilometres (65 mi). From that lofty perch, it captured the first photograph of Earth from space, showing the southwestern United States under a veil of clouds and the planet’s curvature.
After the mission, the rocket fell back to Earth, crashing at about 550 km/h (342 mph). Remarkably, the camera’s film, protected inside a steel container, survived intact, allowing scientists to retrieve and analyze the historic images. A 1950 National Geographic article later described the picture as revealing how “our Earth would look to visitors from another planet coming in on a space ship.”
1 Earthrise
Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to travel beyond Earth’s orbit, launched on 21 December 1968. Astronauts Frank Borman, Bill Anders, and James Lovell became the inaugural humans to orbit the Moon, scouting potential landing sites for future missions.
During the spacecraft’s fourth orbit on 24 December, the crew emerged from the Moon’s far side and witnessed a breathtaking sight: a blue sphere rising over the lunar horizon—Earth itself, illuminated against the blackness of space.
Although the mission’s primary goal was reconnaissance, the astronauts were also preparing to read passages from Genesis live on television. Yet the view was so mesmerizing that they couldn’t resist documenting it. Anders captured a color photograph of Earth, later known worldwide as “Earthrise.”
The image sparked the environmental movement, inspiring the first Earth Day and prompting Anders to remark, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”