December 24, 1968, from the crew of Apollo 8. Isn’t it beautiful? Of course, it is not really an earth emergence. As seen from anywhere on the near side of the moon, the Earth does not rise or set, but simply hangs in one place in the lunar sky. The astronauts saw Earth rise as they moved above the lunar surface in a spacecraft.
On Christmas Eve in 1968, William Anders, aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft, pointed his camera at Earth and took this photo that is now legendary. It was a photo that showed people a new perspective, with the moon in the foreground and the Earth floating in deep space. The iconic image helped stimulate the environmental movement.
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NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio released the video below on the 45th anniversary of the photo now known as “Earthrise.” The position of Apollo 8 and what the astronauts saw through the spacecraft windows are simulated and tuned to the audio of the flight.
You can hear the voices of the Apollo 8 astronauts: Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James A. Lovell. In the astronauts’ fourth orbit, Borman performed a roll maneuver of their spaceship, putting them in position to capture Earth rising above the lunar horizon. The video chronicles the thrilling moments as they are first surprised by the view and struggle to get color film to capture the memorable photo, joking that the image was not part of their schedule.
Dan Rather described the iconic image in his book, What unites us. He explains how it captures the peaceful Earth in the darkness of space and what really happened on the planet at that point in history:
This image, so peaceful yet so breathtaking, was taken at the end of a turbulent year. It was Christmas Eve 1968, but from there you would never know that a hot war was raging in Vietnam or that a Cold War was dividing Europe. You wouldn’t know about the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Bobby Kennedy. From that distance, people are invisible, as are cities, countries and national borders. Everything that separates us ethnically, culturally, politically and spiritually is missing from the image. What we see is a fragile planet making its way through the vastness of space.
With a click of a shutter, our spaceship Earth and everyone on board were captured by the first humans who ventured beyond Earth’s gravity and gave us a better idea of our home.
Apollo 8 re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, photographed from a USAF KC-135A aircraft at 12,000 feet. Image via @elakdawalla on Twitter.
In short, Earthrise is an iconic photograph taken by astronaut William Anders in the moon’s fourth orbit aboard Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968.
Click here for more details about the NASA visualization.
