The First Family Portrait of Earth and the Moon On September 18, 1977 — just 13 days after launch — Voyager 1 looked back and captured something no one had ever seen before: Earth and the Moon together in a single frame. From 11.66 million kilometers (7.25 million miles) away, two slender crescents hung in the blackness — our home and its companion, shown for the first time as complete worlds in the same view. Eastern Asia, the western Pacific, and a slice of the Arctic were visible on Earth. At the moment the picture was taken, the spacecraft was positioned almost directly above Mount Everest, on the night side of the planet. The Moon was artificially brightened by a factor of three so it wouldn’t be lost next to the much brighter Earth. The final color image was assembled from three separate exposures taken through different filters. It was the first time humanity saw itself and its Moon this way — a quiet, distant glance homeward long before Voyager 1 would later capture the famous Pale Blue Dot from the edge of the solar system.