"We catch a glimpse of a huge swirl of clouds out the window over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or the boot of Italy jutting down into the Mediterranean, or the brilliant blue coral reefs of the Caribbean strutting their beauty before the stars. And...we experienced those uniquely human qualities: awe, curiosity, wonder, joy, amazement." (Russell L. Schweickart, Apollo Astronaut ("The Home Planet")
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What is the Gateway to Astronaut Photography?
The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth hosts the best and most complete online collection of astronaut photographs of the Earth.
Beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken photographs of the Earth. Our database
tracks the locations, supporting data, and digital images for these photographs. We process images coming down from the
International Space Station on a daily basis and add them to the 1,628,093
views of the Earth already made accessible on our website.
These images include 1,147,405
from the International Space Station.
These numbers were determined 2/1/2013.
There were 28,112,771 web hits &
28,186,788 database photo image downloads in January 2013.