Famous Ertris photo taken on Christmas Eve | The human world

December 24, 1968, from the crew of Apollo 8. Isn’t this beautiful? This is not really an earth. As seen from anywhere near the moon, the earth does not rise or set, but hangs in one place in the lunar sky. The astronauts saw the rise of the Earth as they move in a spacecraft above the surface of the Moon.

On Christmas Eve 1968, William Anders, aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft, turned his camera toward Earth and took this now-famous photograph. This is a photo that showed a new perspective to humans, with the moon in the foreground and the earth floating in the distance. The iconic image helped stimulate the environmental movement.

Earthsky’s lunar calendar shows the lunar phase Daily In 2021. Order yours before they leave!

NASA’s Science Exhibition Studio has released the video below to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the photo, now known as “Earthrise”. The position of the Apollo 8 and what the astronauts saw through the windows of the spacecraft were recreated and matched with audio from the aircraft.

You can hear the voices of the Apollo 8 astronauts: Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James a. Lowell. During the astronauts’ fourth orbit on the moon, Borman performed a roll maneuver of their craft, which positioned them to catch climbing Earth on the lunar horizon. While making fun of the fact that this video is not a part of their table, the video releases wonderful moments as they are amazed at the sight for the first time and understand that getting the color image to capture the important photo.

Don Rother described the icon in his book, What unites us. He explains how it captures the peaceful earth in the darkness of space and what is really happening on the planet at that moment in history:

Very quiet and still breathtaking this picture 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 splitting Europe. You have no idea about the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Bobby Kennedy. From that distance, people are invisible, like cities, countries and national borders. Everything that divides us racially, culturally, politically and spiritually is out of shape. What we see is a weak planet, transcending the vastness of space.

With the click of a shutter, our spacecraft Earth and everyone on board were captured by the first humans who dared to cross the Earth’s gravitational field and give the best picture of our home.

Apollo 8 returns Earth’s atmosphere as photographed at 40,000 feet above USAF KC-135A. Image via elakdawalla on Twitter.

Bottom line: Ertris is an iconic photograph taken by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968 on Apollo 8 in the Moon’s fourth orbit.

Click here to read more about NASA Visualization.