overview: “Earthrise” is the iconic view of the Earth above the lunar horizon.
Where: The Moon as seen from orbit by the Apollo 8 spacecraft
Date and time of photo: Christmas Eve 1968
Why it’s special: The Earthrise, one of the most impressive photographs ever taken, Driving force of the environmental movementThis photograph was taken on December 24, 1968 by Lunar Module Pilot Bill Anders on the Apollo 8 mission, NASA’s first mission to the moon.
NASA re-shared the image this month. Remembering Andersdied on June 7th at the age of 90 in a plane crash in the San Juan Islands, Washington.
His photograph, taken with a Hasselblad 70mm still camera and a 250mm telephoto lens, shows the Earth about 5 degrees above the lunar horizon. The half-illuminated image of the Earth shows Antarctica in the upper left, with North and South America, near the sunset line, largely obscured by clouds.
The original photograph was actually taken with the Earth to the left of the Moon, but the image people remember is one that has been rotated 90 degrees so that the Earth appears to be rising above the horizon. The Earth does not appear to rise from the Earth the way the Sun or Moon appear to rise from the Earth. The only way the Earth appears to rise from the Moon is from the lunar orbit.
The photograph, taken at approximately 10:30 a.m. CST during the fourth of ten orbits of the Apollo 8 command module, was an improvised shot by Anders, who asked fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell for their cameras with color film.
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“Oh look at that picture! The Earth is floating. Wow, it’s beautiful!” Anders Said“Jim, do you have any color film? Can you give me a roll of color film right now? Hurry! Hurry!”
Lovell found some color film, and after several tries through a few different windows, Anders took the photograph with several different settings, which is deposited in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory catalog as image AS08-14-2383. archive Of the mission.
The image was fitting for the mission, because the three astronauts were the first to escape Earth’s gravity and the first to orbit the Moon. Anders was also the backup pilot for Apollo 11, the mission that put the first humans on the Moon the following year.
“Bill Anders gave one of the most profound gifts an explorer and astronaut can give to humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. statement“With the Apollo 8 crew, Bill looked back at Earth from the moon’s opening and gave us an incredible image (the first of its kind) of Earth suspended in space, illuminated by light and hidden by darkness. That’s Earthrise.”
In 2018, the 25-mile-wide (40-kilometer-wide) impact crater on the far side of the moon, in the foreground of this famous photo, was renamed “Anders Earthrise.”
