First image of Earth from space

The V-2 rockets were one of Nazi Germany’s super weapons in World War II. After the war many of these were seized by the Soviet Union and USA to aid their development of their own rocket programmes. On 24 October 1946 at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, USA, a captured V-2 was launched carrying a 35-mm motion picture camera, which took one frame every 1.5 seconds. The rocket achieved an altitude of 104.6 km before plummeting back to Earth. The camera cassette survived the 150 m/s crash and contained grainy black and white images showing clearly the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space.