The incredible story behind an image we’ve all seen hundreds of times, possibly the most reproduced photograph in history

It’s an iconic image we have all seen hundreds of times, possibly thousands, and probably the most widely reproduced photograph in history. Because it’s in the public domain it has been used for everything from car commercials to the Earth Day flag, printed on T-shirts, postage stamps, billboards, book covers, mouse pads — most any surface you can print on. It even has its own Facebook page. In the NASA archive its formal designation is AS17-148-22727 but it’s commonly known as The Blue Marble Shot, and forty years later we still aren’t sure who actually took it. The Blue Marble Shot: Our First Complete Photograph of Earth – Atlantic Mobile.