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.
Blue marble picture apollo 8.
View of the earth as seen by the apollo 17 crew astronaut eugene a.
This is the first picture of the earth from lunar orbit.
Although not a blue marble as it s in black and white lunar orbiter 1 took an earlier earthrise photo on august 23 1966.
On december 7 1972 the crew of apollo 17 changed the way we look at our home planet.
That was the last of the apollo moon missions but nasa s space probes continued to take.
This was the first time the apollo trajectory.
It mainly shows the earth from the mediterranean sea to antarctica.
It was taken by the astronaut bill anders on christmas eve 1968 as the apollo 8 spacecraft rounded the dark side of the moon for a fourth time.
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.
The home planet as seen from lunar orbit christmas.
The new collection is called the blue marble.
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.
And scientist astronaut harrison h.
Here s the story behind the picture blue marble.
Apollo 8 s earthrise photo changed our understanding of our place in the universe.
From the great distance of the moon nearly the entire western hemisphere is visible.
Evans command module pilot.
This photograph illustrates the earth as an isolated ecosystem floating in space.
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.
Earthrise was followed by blue marble a view of the earth taken from the apollo 17 spacecraft in 1972.
Schmitt lunar module pilot traveling toward the moon.
T his photograph is now half a century old.