First orbital images of Earth

The very first photo of Earth was taken by NASA’s Explorer 6 satellite on 14 August 1959. The USA’s answer to Sputnik weighed 64.4 kg (142 lb) and orbited at a height of 17,000 miles. Its "camera" was, in fact, a scanning device with a small analogue electronic processor called "Telebit". It took 40 minutes to transmit back to Earth the 7,000 pixels each frame of an image comprised. The first image was of the crescent Earth and was only released after an intensive two months of processing. These first pictures were shaky and distorted, but scientists could discern large white areas of banks of cloud. These images were the forerunner of meteorological satellite images we use today.