December 24, 1968, from Apollo’s crew 8. Isn’t that beautiful? It’s really no earthworks. As seen from any place close to the moon, the earth does not rise or set, but the moon hangs in only one place in the sky. The astronauts saw the rise of the Earth as they moved from the surface of the moon into the spacecraft.
On Christmas Eve in 1968, William Enders, aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft, turned his camera toward Earth and took this photo, which is now legendary. It was a photo that showed humans a new perspective, with the moon and earth floating in the distance in the foreground. The iconic image helped stimulate the environmental movement.
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NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has released the following video on the 45th anniversary of the photo, now known as “Earthwise”. The position of the Apollo 8 and what the astronauts saw through the astronauts’ windows have been recreated and matched to the audio dio from the flight.
You can hear the voices of the Apollo 8 astronauts: Commander Frank Bormann and crew members William A. Anders and James a. Lovely. On the fourth orbit of the lunar astronauts, Borman maneuvered his craft roll, which put him in a position to hold the Earth ascending the lunar horizon. The video relays the provocative moments as they are amazed by the first scene and fight to get a color film to get a momentary photograph, while joking that the image is not part of their schedule.
Dan Rath describes the iconic image in his book, What makes us one. He explains that he captures the peaceful earth in the darkness of space and what is really happening on the planet at that moment in history:
This picture, very peaceful and yet very forceful, was taken at the end of a tumultuous year. It was 1968, the day before Christmas, but from there you would never know whether there was a hot war going on in Vietnam or a cold war dividing Europe. You Dr. Don’t know about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. or Bobby Kennedy. From that distance, people are invisible, and so are cities, countries and national borders. All that separates us ethnically, culturally, politically and spiritually is not far from the image. What we see is a fragile planet that proceeds in the vastness of space.
With the click of a shutter, our spaceship Earth and everyone on it were captured by the first humans to go beyond the limits of Earth’s gravity and give us a better picture of our home.
U.A.S.P. K.C. – Apollo 8 is returning to Earth’s atmosphere, as photographed at 40,000 feet from the 135A plane. Image by @elakdawalla on Twitter.
Bottom line: Earthsize is an iconic photo taken by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968 on the fourth orbit of the moon on Apollo 8.
Click here to read more details about NASA Visualization.
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