What is it: Forty years ago, the first unmanned lunar orbiters took high-res photos from outside Earth’s atmosphere. The tapes containing the original images were buried in an abandoned salt mine, forgotten and eventually slated for destruction.
Although someone realised the tape’s worth and saved them, no one knew how the data was stored on them or even what machine was used to write them. The linked article takes you on the journey of “technology archaeology” that saved the tapes and recovered the images.
These tapes include a higher resolution version, the original, of what Time Magazine dubbed “the photo of the century” (seen above).
Why is it cool: I like three things about this story. First, it is a cautionary tale that, as we race ahead with ever greater technology, we should be careful not to lose touch with our past as we might not realise what we’re leaving behind.
Second, the quality of moon images on those tapes is even better than we get with the Hubble, because they were taken in high resolution from low orbit. This shows that the new ways are not uniformly better and that there’s still gains to be made from the achievements of our forefathers – even if they didn’t have the cool tech toys we have today.
Third, the above image reminds us that just 40 years ago we didn’t know what Earth looked like as a whole, from the outside. Yet since then we’ve added full colour photographs of Earth seen through Saturn’s rings by the Cassini spacecraft and as seen from the edge of the solar system by Voyager 1. This series of images really offers perspective, especially considering how new that is to our consciousness.
Where to find it: here!
Submitted by: John Cucka
