Using Nazi Rockets, the first photo of Earth from space was taken 70 years ago
The first artificial satellite at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico launched a camera on the top German- designed-V-2 ballistic missile and managed to snap the first photo of the Earth from space.
On October 24, 1946, the rocket flew 65 miles just above the Karman line, the 35-millimeter motion picture camera snapped a frame every second and a half. Minutes later,with a speed of more than 340mph the whole thing came crashing back down and slammed into the ground.
When the researchers first found the film, "They were ecstatic, they were jumping up and down like kids"as Fred Rulli, who was 19-year -old serviceman at that time told in a 2006 article. After the recovery, when they showed the grainy, black-and-white pictures of the Earth onto a screen "the scientists just went nuts", reported by PM
The highest photo ever taken was from the Exploreer11 balloon in 1935, 13.7 miles up, just high enough to make out the curvature of the Earth. On the other hand, the V-2 photo clearly shows the planet despite the darkness of the space. This idea prompted the camera engineer Clyde Holliday to write an article on National Geographic Channel," How our earth would look to visitors from another planet".
Between1946 to 1950 hundreds of photos were taken from the tops of V-2 rockets. From the perspective of outer space a complete picture of earth shaped for the first time, launching a new wave of the geological and meteorological study, reported by Mail Online.
We have been captivated and inspired by photos of our home planet taken from space. The Pale Blue Dot image taken by Voyager 2 in 1990 by the request of famed astronomer Carl Sagan is one of the most profound visualizations of our home planet.
From the final frontier, 70 more years of photographing is in there.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of latinpost.com