Blue Horizons

It seems that every day, the barrier for access to space keeps lowering. In recent years, space technology has improved so much, that we are often swamped by images from orbit. Photos of Earth have become so commonplace, that we can lose our sense of awe and wonder. We’ve come a very long way from the first Blue Marble image, taken in 1972 aboard the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon.

And yet sometimes, the simplest unsuspecting image seems to transcend all of this. Flying into the sunset over Antarctica, SpIRIT captured a glimpse of our blue marble and its wafer thin atmosphere, suspended in space. Images like these challenge us to reframe our everyday perspectives, and pause to remember the fragility and beauty of the planet that we all call home. Capturing moments like this is without a doubt one of the best, and most humbling experiences of flying a spacecraft like SpIRIT.

This image was taken by SpIRIT over Antarctica on the 22nd of January 2025 with SpIRIT RGB camera 4 at an exposure time of 0.5 milliseconds.