Sir, Last year in April 2010 we celebrated the 50th anniversary of TIROS-1, the world's first weather satellite. On the day of its launch, 1 April 1960, TIROS (Television Infra-Red Observation Satellite) transmitted the first successful pictures of Earth's cloud cover taken by an orbiting satellite. The 'first TV picture of the Earth from space' has been widely reproduced over a number of years and currently appears on numerous websites, including those of NASA and NOAA. There is, however, one problem; the picture wasn't the 'first' received from TIROS, nor was it taken on 1 April 1960.
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