The Blue Marble: How a Photograph Revealed Earth's Fragile Beauty
Harrison Jack Schmitt collects rock and soil samples near a huge boulder When NASA was planning the mission no one foresaw that there would be a huge bonus Even as he quipped about Earth’s being round Cernan was unaware that Apollo 17 would soon produce an iconic photo This stunning image would show planet Earth as a lonely globe floating in the inky black immenseness of outer space Nicknamed the Blue Marble the picture was destined to become a good deal more famous than the mission itself Within a few years it would achieve the reputation of being one of the most often
reproduced and most recognizable photos in history Considering the picture’s almost legendary status it is perhaps surprising that it still is not clear which of the three Apollo 17 crewmen took it Besides the commander Eugene Cernan command module pilot Ronald Evans and Harrison Jack Schmitt the lunar module pilot and mission geologist were on board Schmitt is convinced he shot the famous Blue Marble photo Schmitt later said he snapped the shot in question I treasure the whole mission he said in a 2012 interview Every day had more than one really spectacular event The first day we saw this nearly full Earth and I was able to take that picture the Blue Marble still
the most requested photograph in the NASA archives NASA officials who studied the mission data agreed that Schmitt was most likely the photo’s creator But they found that all three astronauts had taken images of Earth on their first day in space And they were not paying strict attention to who was taking which photo So the officials could not determine the Blue Marble’s photographer with certainty To be fair therefore the official credit for the picture went to the entire Apollo 17 crew Whoever actually snapped the renowned photo it was not the first one taken of Earth’s completely illuminated disk Cameras mounted on a satellite had already captured such shots In 1967 two years before U S astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission first landed on the moon NASA’s ATS-3 communications satellite had taken photos of Earth’s full disk Earlier astronauts had also seen and photographed one side of Earth from space The Apollo 8 spacecraft had made history December 24 1968 as the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon At one point its crewmen caught sight of Earth appearing to rise above the lunarhorizon Later dubbed Earthrise the photo taken during the Apollo 8 mission became almost as iconic as the Blue Marble The main difference between the two was the coverage of the planet’s surface The Blue Marble taken from an altitude of about 28,000 miles 45,000 km showed a full Earth rather than a gibbous Earth Gibbous refers to the phase in which a planet or moon is more than half but not fully illuminated The sun was directly behind the Apollo 17 spacecraft So its occupants were able to create the first image of a fully lit side of Earth from space Much of the 1972 Apollo 17 image was a deep blue mostly created by sunlight reflecting off the Atlantic and Indian oceans It was accented by the warm brown hue of Africa and other landmasses There were also bold streaks of white some from clouds but
A communications satellite photographed Earth in 1967 with a black and white TV camera Three photos each with a red green or blue filter created the color image The small disk in front is a color match card
