Let us ask you a question… How many pictures of our home planet have you actually laid eyes on? By Earth photos we don’t mean the familiar shots taken from the International Space Station or from high‑altitude aircraft. We’re talking about images snapped from deep space, from other worlds, or from daring spacecraft that have never been broadcast to the public before. This is the top 10 never collection of mind‑blowing Earth photographs that most people have never seen.
Top 10 Never‑Seen Photos Explained
10 Photo of the Earth from Saturn
On 19 July 2019 the Cassini spacecraft, cruising near Saturn, captured a jaw‑dropping snapshot of our planet. In the frame, Saturn’s iconic rings dominate the foreground while the tiny blue dot of Earth hangs far away, accompanied by a faint sliver of the Moon. NASA christened this masterpiece “The Day the Earth Smiled” because the planet’s illumination was perfectly balanced by Saturn’s shadow, preventing any glare that could have ruined the shot.
The image quickly rose to fame as one of the most iconic Earth pictures ever taken, thanks to the serendipitous alignment that blocked the Sun’s direct light and left Cassini with a clean view. Though it stole the spotlight, it is just one of many stunning Earth‑Saturn composites Cassini collected during its mission.
Back in 2006 Cassini produced another gem—dubbed the “Blue Orb”—which featured part of Saturn’s rings framing Earth. In 2013 the probe also snapped a view where the Moon was clearly visible beside Earth, but the rings were absent. Each of these shots adds a unique perspective to our understanding of Earth’s place in the solar system.
9 Farthest Photo of Earth from Space
What does our world look like when it’s reduced to a speck of light billions of miles away? The answer lies in the legendary “Pale Blue Dot,” taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. The photograph shows Earth as a minuscule dot perched in a sunbeam that stretches across the image, emphasizing the fragility of our home.
When Voyager 1 captured this image, it was a staggering 3.7 billion miles from Earth—far beyond the orbit of every planet, even Pluto. The data packet containing the picture didn’t arrive back on Earth until 1 May 1990, a journey of two and a half months across interplanetary space.
The Pale Blue Dot belongs to a set of roughly 60 images Voyager 1 recorded during its grand tour, which also includes close‑ups of Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. Curiously, Mercury never made the cut because the Sun’s glare overwhelmed the tiny planet, while Mars was obscured by sunlight and Pluto proved too dim and distant for a clear capture.
Today, Voyager 1 drifts in interstellar space, a region where the Sun’s gravitational pull is almost negligible. Its cameras were switched off shortly after the historic images were taken, so we won’t see any new photos from this venerable explorer.
8 Photo of the Earth Rising from the Moon
Christmas Eve 1968 marked a turning point for humanity when Apollo 8’s three‑astronaut crew became the first humans to travel to the Moon. Though they never set foot on the lunar surface, their orbit produced a photograph that would ignite the modern environmental movement.
Astronaut William Anders captured a vibrant, color image of Earth rising over the Moon’s barren horizon. In the picture, the planet’s bright blue hemisphere glows above a pitch‑black lunar surface, while the Moon’s dusty terrain stretches into the foreground. This iconic shot, named “Earthrise,” resonated worldwide and helped spark a new era of ecological awareness.
While Anders’ picture is the most famous, it isn’t the first of its kind. Two years earlier, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1, an unmanned probe, photographed a similar scene in black‑and‑white. In 2008 NASA released a high‑resolution reconstruction of that 1966 image, which, though lacking color, offers a fascinating glimpse of the early days of lunar photography.
7 Photo of a Crescent‑Like Earth
Imagine looking at Earth from the icy tail of a comet—what shape would it take? While we haven’t yet taken a picture from a comet’s nucleus, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe gave us a tantalizing hint in 2009.
Rosetta’s camera captured a silhouette of Earth that appears almost completely black, save for a bright blue splash at the South Pole. The rest of the planet is shrouded in darkness, creating a dramatic crescent‑like silhouette that looks nothing like the typical full‑globe view we’re used to.
The image was taken during Rosetta’s third Earth flyby, a maneuver designed to boost the spacecraft’s velocity enough to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov‑Gerasimenko. The photo stands as a reminder of how different lighting and viewing angles can transform our familiar planet into an alien landscape.
6 First Photo of the Earth
Believe it or not, the very first photograph of Earth taken from space didn’t come from a satellite or a space‑shuttle—it was captured by a captured German V‑2 rocket. On 24 October 1946, engineers at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico attached a 35 mm camera to a repurposed V‑2 missile and launched it skyward.
The V‑2, originally developed by the Nazis as a “Vengeance Weapon 2,” had been abandoned after World War II. The United States seized a number of these rockets and used them for scientific experiments, including this historic imaging attempt.
The resulting black‑and‑white picture shows a faint blue sphere of Earth punctuated by thin white cloud streaks against the darkness of space. Though primitive by today’s standards, this image opened the door to all the spectacular space photography that would follow.
5 First Photo of the Earth and Moon
On 22 December 1966, NASA’s Applications Technology Satellite‑1 (ATS‑1) achieved a first‑of‑its‑kind feat: it photographed both Earth and its companion satellite, the Moon, in a single frame. The image shows a portion of Earth dominating the foreground while the full Moon hangs in the background, offering a striking juxtaposition of our home planet and its nearest celestial neighbor.
Many space enthusiasts mistakenly attribute this achievement to Voyager 1, but that probe only captured a full‑disk view of Earth and the Moon later in its mission. ATS‑1’s pioneering shot predates Voyager’s images, cementing its place in the annals of space photography history.
4 Photo of Planets Earth and Venus from Mars
Seeing Earth from the surface of another planet is a rare treat, and in mid‑2020 the Curiosity rover on Mars gave us exactly that. The rover pointed its Mast Camera toward the night sky and captured two separate images—one of Earth and another of Venus. NASA engineers later merged the two frames into a single composite.
Because the Martian atmosphere was loaded with dust at the time, both planets appear as bright, almost glaring points of light against a washed‑out sky. The dust particles scatter sunlight, creating a bright backdrop that makes only the brightest objects—like Earth and Venus—stand out.
This composite may lack fine detail, but it provides a vivid illustration of how planetary atmospheres can dramatically alter the appearance of distant celestial bodies.
3 Photo of the Earth and Moon from Mercury
On 19 July 2013 NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, while orbiting Mercury, seized a remarkable image that shows Earth and the Moon as two brilliant specks almost indistinguishable from each other. This was a product of the probe’s mission to hunt for tiny, elusive satellites orbiting Mercury.
To detect such small objects, MESSENGER employed a technique called overexposure: the cameras were deliberately left open longer to gather as much light as possible. This approach ensured that even faint bodies could be captured, but it also meant that bright objects like Earth and the Moon appeared washed out and merged together.
If the probe had taken the picture immediately after aiming its camera, both Earth and the Moon would have been reduced to a single pixel. The overexposure technique was essential for revealing these luminous dots against the stark backdrop of space.
2 First Full Photo of the Earth
Capturing a complete, detailed view of Earth from space is a delicate balancing act: the camera must be far enough to encompass the whole globe yet close enough to resolve surface features, and lighting must be just right to avoid harsh shadows.
Many people assume the iconic “Blue Marble” taken by Apollo 17 in 1972 was the first full‑disk image of our planet. In reality, the very first full‑Earth photograph was snapped by NASA’s ATS‑3 experimental weather satellite in November 1967. The earlier image is often overlooked because its colors are slightly less vivid than the later Apollo shot.
The 1967 photo, now sometimes called the “1967 Blue Marble,” paved the way for the more celebrated 1972 version, which benefitted from better lighting and higher resolution, cementing its place in popular culture.
1 The Last Full Photo of the Earth
The two Blue Marbles we just discussed are part of a larger family of full‑disk Earth images, the most recent of which was captured in 2015 and dubbed the “2015 Blue Marble.” Its release was delayed for years due to political wrangling over the satellite that would take the picture.
The saga began in 1998 when then‑Vice President Al Gore announced NASA’s plan to launch a dedicated satellite for a comprehensive Earth photograph. Republicans derisively labeled the project “Goresat,” sparking a bipartisan dispute that lingered through the Bush administration, which even suggested swapping the camera payload for sandbags to reduce weight.
NASA, however, argued that the cameras served multiple scientific purposes and that removing them would compromise the satellite’s stability. The impasse continued until President Barack Obama took office in 2008, after which the project was revived, the satellite launched, and the stunning 2015 image finally released.