Astronomy – GeekWeek, Science – Geekweek Interia

75 years ago, in October, there was a major German theft V-2. missilesCaptured from the Nazis after the end of World War II, American scientists placed a camera on it and launched it from the White Sands Missile Range military base in New Mexico in an attempt to capture the first image of our planet since space. The missile has passed Karman line, that is to say the imaginary border between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, with a height of about 104 kilometers.

Meanwhile, a 35mm camera was taking pictures of our planet every and a half seconds, and after a few minutes it was over – the rocket fell to Earth at a speed of 547 km / h. Fortunately, the camera, housed in a special protective case, survived this trip and impact, and it can be admired. The first image of our planet taken from space… Black and white and whole grain, but this is one of the most unique of all.

Nonetheless, the team continued their efforts and regularly sent V-2 rockets into space to study the upper atmosphere. So, over the next five years, she took hundreds of similar images, thanks to which we slowly got a complete picture of the Earth from the point of view of space, allowing the start of geological studies. . In short, the event was revolutionary, but it turns out that it didn’t end our fascination at all. planets images.

To this day, we appreciate them very much, we make them whenever possible and we are improving. Because technology has changed, modern photos do not look like those taken in the 1940s and 1950s, and what’s more, they are taken using… smartphones. Just look at the photos shared by the astronauts on the web Shenzhou 12, that is to say the first manned flight as part of the construction of the Chinese space station Tiangong.

And if, as you can see, you don’t need to have specialized high-resolution cameras to photograph Earth from space, this is certainly the most impressive. One of the most recent was created as part of the September mission Inspiration 4, made by SpaceX with a Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon capsule, which was also the first flight to orbit with amateur astronauts on board. It is unique in that it was created at a height greater than that of the International Space Station, so it offers a different perspective. We have certainly come a long way and it’s interesting what we can say about it in the next 70 years.