December 24, 1968, from the crew of the Apollo 8. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s not really an exit from Earth. As seen from any point on the near side of the moon, the Earth does not rise or set, but simply hangs at a point in the lunar sky. The astronauts watched the Earth rise as they moved in a spaceship above the surface of the moon.
On Christmas Eve 1968, William Anders, aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft, turned the camera to Earth and took this now legendary photo. It was a photo that showed humans a new perspective, with the moon in the foreground and the Earth floating in distant space. The iconic image helped animate the environmental movement.
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NASA’s scientific visualization studio released the following video on the 45th anniversary of the photo now known as “Earthrise.” The position of Apollo 8 and what astronauts saw through the spaceship’s windows are recreated and match the audio of the flight.
The voices of Apollo 8 astronauts can be heard: Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James A. Lovell. In the astronauts’ fourth moon orbit, Borman performed a launch maneuver on his ship, which put them in position to catch the Earth ascending the lunar horizon. The video conveys the exciting moments as they are amazed at the sight for the first time and face off to get color films to capture the momentous photography, while joking that the image was not part of their schedule.
Dan Rather described the iconic image in his book, What unites us. Explain how he captures the peaceful earth in the darkness of space and what was really happening on the planet at that time in history:
This image, so peaceful and so impressive, was taken at the end of a turbulent year. It was Christmas Eve 1968, but from up there you would never know that a hot war was breaking out in Vietnam or that a cold war was dividing Europe. You wouldn’t know about the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nor of Bobby Kennedy. From this distance, people are invisible and so are cities, countries and national borders. Everything that separates us ethnically, culturally, politically and spiritually is absent from the image. What we see is a fragile planet that traverses the immensity of space.
With the click of a shutter, our spacecraft Earth and everyone on board was captured by the first humans who ventured beyond the gravity of Earth and gave us a better picture of our home.
Apollo 8 re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, as photographed from a 40,000-foot USAF KC-135A. Image via @elakdawalla on Twitter.
Summary: Earthrise is an iconic photograph taken by astronaut William Anders in the fourth orbit of the moon aboard Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968.
Click here to read more details about NASA’s display.
