--- title: Blue Marble: See Evolution of Earth's Biggest Selfie description: From the iconic Apollo 17 image to DSCOVR's most recent addition, see the history of the world's biggest selfie canonical: https://time.com/3964886/earth-blue-marble-photos/ author: TIME Photo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-20T19:44:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:23.922Z article:section: Science og:title: See the Breathtaking Evolution of the Blue Marble Photo og:description: From the iconic Apollo 17 image to DSCOVR's most recent addition og:url: https://time.com/3964886/earth-blue-marble-photos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75c09ab5d7db1ad6/69885ba3f887dcf8c6e9170e/earth-blue-marble-dscovr-20151.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1309 og:image:height: 736 og:image:alt: Earth Blue Marble DSCOVR og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See the Breathtaking Evolution of the Blue Marble Photo twitter:description: From the iconic Apollo 17 image to DSCOVR's most recent addition twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75c09ab5d7db1ad6/69885ba3f887dcf8c6e9170e/earth-blue-marble-dscovr-20151.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See the Evolution of the Iconic Blue Marble Photo > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=7783d7bc-92a7-483e-8e6e-cd8c53da89c9&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jul 20, 2015 7:44 PM UTC  The newest "Blue Marble", Earth seen from a distance of one million miles captured by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft on July 6, 2015. The newest "Blue Marble", Earth seen from a distance of one million miles captured by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft on July 6, 2015. NASA by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jul 20, 2015 7:44 PM UTC  Blue Marble, 1972; The original "Blue Marble" was taken on Dec. 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi). It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula. NASA  NASA created these two images to exhibit high-resolution global composites of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The land surface data were acquired from June through Sep. of 2001\. The clouds were acquired on two separate days - July 29, 2001, for the northern hemisphere and Nov. 16, 2001 for the southern hemisphere. The images were rendered in late January 2002. NASA  In 2002, NASA released the most detailed true-color image of the Earth’s surface ever produced up to that point. Scientists and data visualizers created the image by stitching together data collected over 4 months from NASA’s Terra satellite. The 2002 Blue Marble featured land surfaces, clouds, topography, and city lights at a maximum resolution of 1 kilometer per pixel. (NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli)  The Blue Marble: Next Generation was a series of images that show the color of the Earth’s surface for each month of 2004 at very high resolution (500 meters/pixel) at a global scale. This image is a mosaic showing South America from September 2004 (with clouds removed). Reto Stöckli and Robert Simmon/NASA  Known as the "Black Marble", this image of North and South America at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. NOAA/NASA/SuomiNPP  An image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's Earth-observing research satellite, Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on 4 Jan. 4, 2012. NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring  The newest "Blue Marble", Earth seen from a distance of one million miles captured by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft on July 6, 2015. 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