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Lot Essay
The historic and long-awaited first color photograph of the full disc of our Home Planet which could be described as mankind’s first self-portrait.
After the roaring success of the satellite ATS I which transmitted the first B&W detailed photographs of the whole Earth with its “spin-scan cloud camera,” Dr. Verner Suomi developed a color camera for ATS 3, launched in November 1967 and sent into an equatorial geostationary orbit (22,236 miles above the Earth) which was to take one of the most iconic photographs in the history of space exploration. This unprecedented photograph showed North and South America, part of Africa and Europe, as well as the southern part of the Greenland ice cap, and Antarctica covered with clouds.
The original NASA caption for the photograph was uncharacteristically poetic: “The photo shows the entire disk of the Earth, a cloud-covered globe in the blackness of space.”
The photograph was to become a symbol of the counterculture movement as the cover illustration of the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog.
Twenty-four Apollo astronauts from 1968 to 1972 were the only men to witness their planet as a globe in space and Apollo 17 the only crew to photograph such a fully illuminated view of the Earth.
After the roaring success of the satellite ATS I which transmitted the first B&W detailed photographs of the whole Earth with its “spin-scan cloud camera,” Dr. Verner Suomi developed a color camera for ATS 3, launched in November 1967 and sent into an equatorial geostationary orbit (22,236 miles above the Earth) which was to take one of the most iconic photographs in the history of space exploration. This unprecedented photograph showed North and South America, part of Africa and Europe, as well as the southern part of the Greenland ice cap, and Antarctica covered with clouds.
The original NASA caption for the photograph was uncharacteristically poetic: “The photo shows the entire disk of the Earth, a cloud-covered globe in the blackness of space.”
The photograph was to become a symbol of the counterculture movement as the cover illustration of the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog.
Twenty-four Apollo astronauts from 1968 to 1972 were the only men to witness their planet as a globe in space and Apollo 17 the only crew to photograph such a fully illuminated view of the Earth.
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Lot 182
Sale 20142
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ATS III
The first color photograph of the full Planet Earth, November 10, 1967
Estimate: GBP 4,000 - 6,000
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Estimated total cost exclusive of customs duties/charges and tariffs