Blue Marble Picture Apollo 8

Here s the story behind the picture blue marble.

Blue marble picture apollo 8.

That was the last of the apollo moon missions but nasa s space probes continued to take. This spectacular blue marble image is the most detailed true color image of the entire earth to date. Earthrise was followed by blue marble a view of the earth taken from the apollo 17 spacecraft in 1972. Although not a blue marble as it s in black and white lunar orbiter 1 took an earlier earthrise photo on august 23 1966.

T his photograph is now half a century old. It mainly shows the earth from the mediterranean sea to antarctica. It was taken by the crew of the apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the moon and is one of the most reproduced images in history. This translunar coast photograph extends from the mediterranean sea area to the antarctica south polar ice cap.

Using a collection of satellite based observations scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface oceans sea ice and clouds into a seamless true color mosaic of every square kilometer 386 square mile of our planet. Apollo 8 s earthrise photo changed our understanding of our place in the universe. This is the first picture of the earth from lunar orbit. The home planet as seen from lunar orbit christmas.

This photograph illustrates the earth as an isolated ecosystem floating in space. Schmitt lunar module pilot traveling toward the moon. Evans command module pilot. This was the first time the apollo trajectory.

View of the earth as seen by the apollo 17 crew astronaut eugene a. The blue marble is an image of earth taken on december 7 1972 from a distance of about 29 000 kilometers 18 000 miles from the planet s surface. And scientist astronaut harrison h. This is the first picture of the earth from lunar orbit.

From the great distance of the moon nearly the entire western hemisphere is visible. It was not until this stunning photo along with many others came back to earth with the apollo 8 astronauts in late december 1968 that we saw earth as a vibrant delicate blue and white globe framed by the velvety blackness of space.