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''Earthrise'' is a photograph of
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
and some of the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
's surface that was taken from
lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by spacecraft around the Moon. The ...
by astronaut
William Anders William Alison Anders (born 17 October 1933) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, t ...
on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer
Galen Rowell Galen Avery Rowell (August 23, 1940 – August 11, 2002) was a wilderness photographer, adventure photojournalist and mountaineer. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972. Early life and education Rowell was intr ...
described it as "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken". Anders's color image had been preceded by a crude black-and-white 1966
raster Raster may refer to: * Raster graphics, graphical techniques using arrays of pixel values * Raster graphics editor, a computer program * Raster scan, the pattern of image readout, transmission, storage, and reconstruction in television and compu ...
image taken by the
Lunar Orbiter 1 The 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 robotic spacecraft mission, part of NASA's Lunar Orbiter program, was the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It was designed primarily to photograph smooth areas of the lunar surface for selection and verifica ...
robotic probe, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon.


Details

''Earthrise'' was taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first crewed voyage to orbit the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
. Before Anders found a suitable 70 mm color film, mission commander
Frank Borman Frank Frederick Borman II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) colonel (United States), colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, and NASA astronaut. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first missio ...
took a black-and-white photograph of the scene, with the Earth's
terminator Terminator may refer to: Science and technology Genetics * Terminator (genetics), the end of a gene for transcription * Terminator technology, proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation s ...
touching the horizon. The land mass position and cloud patterns in this image are the same as those of the color photograph entitled ''Earthrise''. The photograph was taken from
lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by spacecraft around the Moon. The ...
on December 24, 1968, 15:40 UTC, with a highly modified
Hasselblad Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist ...
500 EL with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring rather than the standard reflex viewfinder and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
developed by
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
. Immediately prior, Anders had been photographing the lunar surface with a 250 mm
lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...
; the lens was subsequently used for the ''Earthrise'' images. There were many images taken at that point. The mission audio tape establishes several photographs were taken, on Borman's orders, with the enthusiastic concurrence of
Jim Lovell James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of th ...
and Anders. Anders took the first color shot, then Lovell who notes the setting (1/250th of a second at ), followed by Anders with another very similar shot
AS08-14-2384
. A black and white reproduction of Borman's image appeared in his 1988 autobiography, captioned, "One of the most famous pictures in photographic history – taken after I grabbed the camera away from Bill Anders". Borman noted that this was the image "the Postal Service used on a stamp, and few photographs have been more frequently reproduced". The photograph reproduced is not the same image as the Anders photograph; aside from the orientation, the cloud patterns differ. Borman later recanted this story and agreed that the black and white shot was also taken by Anders, based on evidence presented by transcript and a video produced by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio employee, Ernie Wright. After Apollo 8's momentous return, NASA technicians – not able to wait for normal film processing – drove four hours from Houston to Corpus Christi Texas to the family-owned R & R Photo Studio & Color Labs (later known as R & R PhotoTechnics) which at that time was the first and only place in South Texas with color photo processing equipment.  More importantly, R&R featured the rare 4-hour Ektachrome slide processing capability for the professional 220-size film used by the astronauts' Hasselblad, making R&R a convenient same-day trip for NASA's critical need. There, the late owner Raul Rodriguez took the precious film which had travelled to the far side of the moon and back.  He personally developed the slides and copied them to regular 220 negatives, which he then also had to develop. Then he exposed and printed the requested photos in quick 8" x 10" glossy size, one of which would eventually be known as ''Earthrise.'' Raul then returned the slides, negatives & photos to the appreciative NASA technicians to rush back to Houston. For the ''Earthrise'' slides, then later the ''Earthrise'' negatives, Raul used a German-made Merz S2A dual-rocking-drum developer. To print the first ''Earthrise'' photo, he used an Auto-focus Chromega D4 enlarger that had modern dial-in color filters. It sat on a motorized-drive, lightproof, 11" wide, roll-paper carrier.  The images came to life via Raul's then state-of-the-art, self-replenishing, mylar-leader, continuous-feed roll-photo paper processor produced by the Nord photo company then based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The stamp issue reproduces the cloud, color, and crater patterns of the Anders picture. Anders is described by Borman as holding "a masters degree in nuclear engineering"; Anders was thus tasked as "the scientific crew member ... also performing the photography duties that would be so important to the Apollo crew who actually landed on the Moon". On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission in 2018, Anders stated: "It really undercut my religious beliefs. The idea that things rotate around the pope and up there is a big supercomputer wondering whether Billy was a good boy yesterday? It doesn't make any sense. I became a big buddy of theist scientist Richard Dawkins."


Geometry

The original image was rotated 95 degrees clockwise to produce the published ''Earthrise'' orientation to better convey the sense of the Earth rising over the moonscape. The published photograph shows Earth rotated clockwise approximately 135° from the typical north–south-Pole-oriented perspective, with south to the left.


Legacy

In ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
''s 2003 book '' 100 Photographs that Changed the World'', wilderness photographer
Galen Rowell Galen Avery Rowell (August 23, 1940 – August 11, 2002) was a wilderness photographer, adventure photojournalist and mountaineer. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972. Early life and education Rowell was intr ...
called ''Earthrise'' "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken". Another author called its appearance the beginning of the environmental movement. Fifty years to the day after taking the photo, William Anders observed, "We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth." In October 2018, two of the craters seen in the photo were named Anders' Earthrise and 8 Homeward by the
Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach ...
(WGPSN) of the
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...
. The craters had previously been designated only with letters. Joni Mitchell sings on her 1976 song " Refuge of the Roads": "In a highway service station / Over the month of June / Was a photograph of the Earth / Taken coming back from the Moon / And you couldn't see a city / On that marbled bowling ball / Or a forest or a highway / Or me here least of all …"


Stamp

In 1969, the
U.S. Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
issued a stamp ( Scott# 1371) commemorating the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon. The stamp featured a detail (in color) of the ''Earthrise'' photograph, and the words, "In the beginning God...", recalling the
Apollo 8 Genesis reading On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon. Astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, nav ...
.


2013 simulation

In 2013, in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, NASA issued a video about the taking of the photograph. This computer-generated visualization used data from the
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions t ...
spacecraft, which had provided detailed images of the lunar surface that could be matched with those taken every 20 seconds by an automatic camera on Apollo 8. The resulting video, re-creating what the astronauts would have seen (rotated 90 degrees clockwise to match the perspective presented in the photograph), was synchronized with the recording of the crew's conversation as they became the first humans to witness an Earthrise. The video included explanatory narration written and read by
Andrew Chaikin Andrew L. Chaikin (born June 24, 1956) is an American author, speaker and science journalist. He lives in Vermont. He is the author of ''A Man on the Moon'', a detailed description of the Apollo program, Apollo missions to the Moon. This book ...
. Chaikin writes that all the photographs of the rising Earth on Apollo 8's fourth orbit were taken by Anders.


Potential earthrises as seen from the Moon's surface

The Earth "rose" because the spacecraft was traveling over the Moon's surface. An earthrise that might be witnessed from the ''surface'' of the Moon would be quite unlike moonrises on Earth. Because the Moon is
tidally locked Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked bo ...
with the Earth, one side of the Moon always faces toward Earth. Interpretation of this fact would lead one to believe that the Earth's position is fixed on the lunar sky and no earthrises can occur; however, the Moon librates slightly, which causes the Earth to draw a
Lissajous figure A Lissajous curve , also known as Lissajous figure or Bowditch curve , is the graph of a system of parametric equations : x=A\sin(at+\delta),\quad y=B\sin(bt), which describe the superposition of two perpendicular oscillations in x and y dir ...
on the sky. This figure fits inside a rectangle 15°48' wide and 13°20' high (in angular dimensions), while the
angular diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it is ...
of the Earth as seen from Moon is only about 2°. This means that earthrises are visible near the edge of the Earth-observable surface of the Moon (about 20% of the surface). Since a full libration cycle takes about 27 days, earthrises are very slow, and it takes about 48 hours for Earth to clear its diameter. During the course of the month-long
lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by spacecraft around the Moon. The ...
, an observer would additionally witness a succession of "Earth phases", much like the
lunar phase Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...
s seen from Earth. That is what accounts for the half-illuminated globe, the
ashen glow Earthlight is the diffuse reflection of sunlight reflected from Earth's surface and clouds. Earthshine (an example of planetshine), also known as the Moon's ashen glow, is the dim illumination of the otherwise unilluminated portion of the Moon ...
, seen in the photograph.


See also

* ''
The Blue Marble ''The Blue Marble'' is an image of Earth taken on December 7, 1972, from a distance of around from the planet's surface. Taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon, it is one of the most reproduced images in history ...
'' *
First images of Earth from space This is a timeline of first images of Earth from space. The initial photographs and digital images of planet Earth taken from outer space were preceded by aerial photography and continue in the form of satellite imagery. For the purpose of this ...
* Earth phase * ''
Pale Blue Dot ''Pale Blue Dot'' is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the ''Voyager 1'' space probe from a record distance of about kilometers ( miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's ''Family Portrait'' series of images of the ...
''


References


External links


''Earthrise'': The 45th Anniversary (NASA Goddard, YouTube channel)

''Earthrise'': The 45th Anniversary
– NASA Goddard webpage with various reconstruction videos
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
reconstruction video of the ''Earthrise'' photograph {{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System 1968 in art 1968 in spaceflight 1968 in the environment 1968 photographs Apollo 8 Apollo program Articles containing video clips Color photographs History of environmentalism Photographs of Earth from outer space Works about the Moon William Anders