The Blue Marble: How a Photograph Revealed Earth's Fragile Beauty
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
more from gleaming ice sheets in Antarctica the ice-covered continent at the South Pole The photo’s mix of colors combined with the shininess of the disk in the brilliant sunlight reminded those who first saw it of a glass marble That is the origin of the name Blue Marble Moved by the sight Schmitt said If there ever was a fragile-appearing piece of blue in space it’s the Earth right now The planet’s delicate frail quality probably was one factor that made the photo so popular worldwide The early 1970s was an era of environmental awareness and activism Many Americans were awakening to an important reality that hurting the environment in one region affects people’s lives in other regions The idea that all humans are passengers on a spaceship called Earth was becoming increasingly evident and accepted American biochemist Gregory A Petsko summed it up beautifully In the Blue Marble image he wrote the entire planet appeared tiny vulnerable and incredibly lonely against the vast blackness of the cosmos It also seemed whole in a way that no map could illustrate Regional conflict and petty differences could be dismissed as trivial compared with environmental dangers that threatened all of humanity traveling together through the void on this fragile-looking marble
A SUPERB SPECTACLE Surprisingly when planning the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 NASA officials did not prepare the astronauts for an Earthrise as seen from the moon So the three crewmen were taken off guard when they saw it Oh my God mission commander Frank Borman exclaimed Look at that picture over there Here’s the Earth coming up Wow is that pretty Jim Lovell agreed Oh man that’s great After frantically loading a camera with color film their crewmate William Anders aimed his camera out a window Carefully he snapped a shot of the superb spectacle of a gibbous Earth hanging in the lunar sky Earthrise photographed Christmas Eve 1968 was the first color photo of Earth taken by a person from lunar orbit
