Humans have been traveling around the world for as long as our species has exist , and after a while it became authoritative to know where one is and where one can go . The oldest survivingmapsare over 2,500 years old , and since then humans ' power to create survey of their surroundings has massively improved thanks to technological advances . But it ’s only recently that everything has changed .

The technological invention that get those alteration are in picture taking , oculus , aviation , and aeronautics . Basically since the mid-1800s , man have been able to bring out visual record of the world around us , but it was not until the thirties that we had exposure of the curvature of the Earth – from a modest altitude of 6.4 kilometre ( 21,000 feet ) .

air travel prove that a bird’s - eye aspect could provide new insights . A few age later , high - altitude atmospherical balloons breached a world record , reach over 22 kilometre ( 72,395 feet ) and providing details about the atmosphere we had not get wind before . But it was with the first satellites , and thenastronauts , that our satellite came in full into centering .

A view of Earth rising above the lunar horizon photographed from the Apollo 10 Lunar Module, looking west in the direction of travel. The Lunar Module at the time the picture was taken was located above the lunar farside highlands at approximately 105 degrees east longitude.

The iconic image of Earth rising above the lunar horizon, as photographed from the Apollo 10 Lunar Module.Image credit: NASA

NASA has put together awonderful collectionof historical photos of Earth from high in the air and from space , as well as Earth from other planet . It show what a special and yet slight place our little corner of the universe really is . Those missions , whether crewed or robotic , merit their kudos ( and the photos are splendid ) but there ’s a quite a little more to this that deserves our attention .

The first run atmospheric condition satellite was set up 64 days ago . On April 1 , 1960 , satelliteTIROS- Television Infrared Observation Satellite – begin take effigy of our planet . It uncover that Earth ’s sphere is not a shoes from which to entirely look at the bully beyond . Space way are associated with uranology and astronautics , but they also have fleets looking down on Earth .

In six - and - a - half decades , we have go from simple-minded imaging to a wide array of quad mission keeping an eye on all the changes in our planet .

Remastered version of the Pale Blue Dot photograph taken by the Voyager mission in 1990; Planet Earth is visible as a tiny white speck towards the center of the otherwise blue/grey image

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, NASA released this new version of the “Pale Blue Dot” image captured by the Voyager mission in 1990, a distant view of our planet.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Clouds , precipitations , winds , ice rink sheets , electromagnetic fields , and gravity – everything is up for grabs . Satellites fromNASA , theEuropean Space Agency , and many others work severally and together to better empathise what our major planet is like and how it is respond to theclimate crisis .

These eyes from the sky bring home the bacon fundamental data that informs many type of option : from your atmospheric condition - dependent outfit to international policy . Satellite information about our satellite plays a Brobdingnagian role and continues to meliorate , with moresophisticatedand specialized observers from the sphere .

A black and white image of Earth showing some clouds.

The first television image of Earth from space from the TIROS-1 weather satellite in 1960.Image credit: NASA