October 24 – First Planetary Selfie

nPosted October 24, 2018

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nI often enjoy science fiction, and in far-flung tales of galactic proportions, brimming full of all manner of aliens, all people feel kinship with one another. We’re not just all humans, we’re all Earthlings, and some sci-fi has humans gallivanting around the galaxy with technologically-savvy chimpanzees and dolphins!

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nSo for Earthling humans to take a photo of the Earth – I’m going to call that the biggest selfie ever!

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nIn order to capture even a substantial fraction of the Earth in one photo – and especially in order to capture the Earth’s curvature – you have to take a photo from outer space.

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nAnd today is the anniversary of the first from-outer-space selfies. 

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nOn this date in 1946, a V-2 rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico reached at maximum altitude of 65 miles. And the DeVry 35-mm black-and-white motion picture camera attached to the rocket managed to take this famous photo of the Earth from space: 

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nOf course, humans have taken loads more and better photos of Earth from space since then. Here are a few gorgeous ones:

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nAnd you don’t have to have a national space program to take photos of Earth from space! This school and this father-and-son team both launched iPhones to space with weather balloons.

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nAlso on this date:

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Food Day in the U.S.A.

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nPlan ahead:

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• nOctober holidays

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• nOctober birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in October

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nAnd here are my Pinterest boards for:
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• nNovember holidays

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• nNovember birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in November

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