(Image: Johns Hopkins University via Bloomsbury Auctions)

We have the world’s first ballistic missile to thank for taking the first ever photograph of Earth from space.

This scratchy image is an original print of the photo, taken in 1946 by a camera in the nose of a V-2 rocket more than 100 kilometres above our planet’s surface. The 35-millimetre negative was retrieved from the remains of the camera after the rocket smashed back to Earth.

The rocket was designed by rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun for a very different purpose. In 1944, German V-2s rained down on western Europe, terrifying civilians and killing thousands. But they were also a technological triumph: the first things made by humans to travel outside Earth’s atmosphere.


After the war, unused V-2s were claimed by the victorious allies. Most were used to develop the rockets that would eventually propel US and Soviet satellites and humans into space – and to threaten nuclear war. The rocket that took this photo was part of the US haul, launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on 24 October 1946.

The original print of the photograph was auctioned today by Dreweatts & Bloomsbury in London. It was part of a collection of original early space photography from the golden age of the space race and fetched £1400.