Photos: Early views of Earth from space

In honor of Earth Day, NASA is showing off a number of views of our home in space, including some historic images. The space agency says that the photos here are the first pictures of Earth seen from an altitude of more than 100 miles. (The threshold to outer space is generally considered 60 miles, if I remember correctly from "The Right Stuff.") They were taken on March 7, 1947, from a captured German V-2 rocket in which the warhead had been replaced by a nose cone that contained a camera.

Until that point, NASA says, the highest altitude from which pictures had been taken of Earth was 13.7 miles, from the Explorer II balloon in 1935.