'The Blue Marble' - A Shot from History

Credits:
Script/Voiceover/Graphics/Edit: Aishwarya Iyer
Motion Graphics: Sunny Gautam
Managing Producer: Joel Michael
Executive Producer: Arnab Dutta
FOOTAGE COURTESY : NASA Archives

Apart from citizens vehemently protesting a changing climate and government action, what do you think is common in all these protests?
This fully illuminated photograph of the Earth was first taken by an astronaut from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in 1972 on his way to the moon. This image that we take for granted today became embedded in the consciousness of generations to come, because it shaped their understanding of the planet in ways that facts and figures could not. As people noticed continents floating across a blue blanket of oceans protected by a thin layer of the atmosphere, juxtaposed with other planets incapable of hosting lives, they realized that there was in fact, ‘No Planet B.’

What is the story behind this iconic picture though?
En route to the moon, when commander Eugene Cernan called Harrison Schmitt, the Lunar Module pilot to take a look at the home they had left behind, he casually replied saying “Ah, you seen one Earth, you’ve seen them all.” until he actually viewed it from the window of his spacecraft. After the crew returned ten days later, photos from the camera onboard were developed at the Johnson Space Center. Photos of the mission adorned the front page of several newspapers that year. Astronaut Bill Anders of Apollo 8 once stated that “It’s ironic that we had come to study the Moon when the trip to the moon was really discovering the Earth.”
It would also go on to become the most reproduced image of the Earth in the years to come, according to NASA archives.

More than 20 thousand miles away from home, with the sun above the spacecraft, the astronauts thought that the Earth displayed a silvery smooth shine and appropriately named it ‘Blue Marble’. This was a small window they had when the Earth and moon weren't partially shadowed.
What does this ‘small window’ mean?
Ideally, while landing on the moon the astronauts needed the sun behind them at an angle of 7-12 degrees above the horizon so that they could see boulders on the moon that would otherwise not be visible. But they also ended up seeing parts of the Earth that would otherwise not be visible . They departed from Florida at night, launching toward a nearly full moon on December 7, 1972.

Interestingly, the original image is inverted because it was taken by a weightless man who did not know what was up or down. Media outlets realigned it to meet earthly perceptions.
At that time,whether this photo was seen as a symbol of the planet’s wondrous yet fragile state or an affirmation of our ability to dominate and manipulate it … is a matter of perception. Today however, one might look at this photo differently. It reminds us that mankind’s technological advancements must be used to combat the climate crisis since we have ‘only one earth’ to save.

“You wish you could take a person in
each hand, one from each side in the various conflicts, and say, Look. Look at it from this perspective. Look at that. What’s important?”
-Astronaut Russell Scheickhart, in describing his experience from space on the Apollo9 mission