Earthrise

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Earthrise, color image, captured by Bill Anders
First black-and-white picture of the rising of the earth above the lunar horizon, taken by Bill Anders

Earthrise ( English for, Earthrise ') is the name of NASA -photos AS8-14-2383HR, taken by William Anders during the flight of Apollo 8 . The picture was taken on December 24, 1968 during the fourth of ten planned orbits of the moon with a Hasselblad 500 camera , focal length 250 mm.

Image description from NASA

The original description of the picture reads:

“The rising Earth is about five degrees above the lunar horizon in this telephoto view taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft near 110 degrees east longitude. The horizon, about 570 kilometers (250 statute miles) [sic] from the spacecraft, is near the eastern limb of the Moon as viewed from the Earth. On the earth, the sunset terminator crosses Africa. The south pole is in the white area near the left end of the terminator. North and South America are under the clouds. The lunar surface probably has less pronounced color than indicated by this print. "

“In this telephoto, the rising earth is about five degrees above the lunar horizon, taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft at 110 degrees east longitude. The horizon, about 570 kilometers (250 miles) from the spaceship, is near the eastern edge of the moon when viewed from Earth. On earth, the day-night border crosses Africa. The South Pole is in the white area at the left end of the day-night boundary. North and South America are under the clouds. The lunar surface probably has less intense colors than on this print. "

- NASA

Circumstances of admission

The creation of the "Earthrise photo" was not included in the original flight plan. During previous orbits of the moon , Commander Frank Borman had always pointed the Apollo spacecraft with its tip facing the surface of the moon in order to take photos of the surface for later landings. Shortly before the spaceship came out from behind the moon and regained radio contact with the earth, Borman let the spaceship rotate around its longitudinal axis when the earth suddenly appeared in the side window.

“Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty! "

"Oh my God! Look at this picture there! The earth rises here. Man, that's nice! "

- Bill Anders : Apollo Flight Journal
Excerpt from the exchange of words between Borman, Anders and Lovell during their recordings

When Bill Anders grabbed the camera to capture the sight, Borman quipped, “ Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled. ”(German:“ Hey, don't take pictures. That's not planned. ”) It was originally assumed that Borman was the first to take a black and white picture of the rising earth, which was just above the lunar horizon, has now been proven also this picture could only be taken by Anders. After the photo, Anders inserted a color film and took the famous picture and another picture of the earth. 70 mm Kodak Ektachrome® film was used for the color photo . The Earthrise photo was originally taken with the lunar horizon in the vertical, but the image is mostly shown rotated by 90 degrees.

Astronomical realities

Computer simulation of the “Earthrise” experienced by the astronauts with a timeline and using the two recordings by Borman and Anders

The moon is in a bound rotation to the earth. That is, he always turns the same side of the earth. Seen from a fixed position on the lunar surface, the earth does not move on a great circle over the sky, but essentially always remains at the same point. A process comparable to sunrise , in which the earth quickly crosses the horizon in a straight line, does not exist on the lunar surface. This impression requires a movement relative to the lunar surface, such as the astronauts carried out in their orbit around the moon.

The orbit of the moon around the earth is slightly elliptical. The moon moves faster and slower along the ellipse due to Kepler's 2nd law . As a result, the earth, as seen from the lunar surface, moves a few degrees back and forth within the 27-day period of lunar revolution. This corresponds to the libration of the moon as seen from the earth. At certain locations on the lunar surface, this movement is sufficient to make the earth disappear behind the horizon and reappear. The cycle length of this process corresponds to the orbit of the moon with 27.3 days.

US postage stamp from 1969

Aftermath

In 1969 the US Postal Service chose the photo as a motif for a postage stamp . The first four words ("In the beginning God" ...) of the English translation of the biblical story of creation were used next to the picture . William Anders quoted this Bible text in a Christmas message from the spaceship on the same day.

Shortly after its publication by NASA, the photo was also interpreted as a symbol of its time. Similar to the Blue Marble shot four years later , it was also seen as a symbol of the conservation movement. The nature photographer Galen Rowell described the picture, which "inspired contemplation on our fragile existence and our place in the cosmos", as "the most influential environmental photography ever made". Four decades later, the historian Robert Poole saw in him the "spiritual origin of the environmental movement".

The Time Magazine took Earthrise in its selection of "100 most influential photographs of history" link. The curators wrote: "The picture is our first colored view of the earth from outside and it has contributed to the development of the environmental movement ." In addition, "Earthrise" showed people that humanity in a cold and dangerous cosmos was " very good "go.

Because of the effect one speaks of an iconographic image .

Older recordings

Lunar Orbiter 1: Earth above the lunar horizon, August 23, 1966.

On August 23, 1966, more than two years before Apollo 8 , the Lunar Orbiter 1 , an unmanned US lunar probe, photographed the earth's sickle over the crater landscape of the earth's satellite. However, the picture is photographed in black and white and has stripes.

See also

Web links

Commons : Earthrise  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andrew Chaikin: Who Took the Legendary Earthrise Photo From Apollo 8? In: The Smithsonian Institution (Ed.): Smithsonian Magazine . tape 2018 , January, January 2018, ISSN  0037-7333 (American English, Who Took the Legendary Earthrise Photo From Apollo 8? [Accessed January 19, 2019]).
  2. ↑ November / December. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: The Sciences. nyas.org, 1998, pp. 16-18 , archived from the original on September 28, 2006 ; accessed on October 8, 2018 . The Sciences, November / December 1998 ( Memento of September 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), pp. 16-18
  3. ↑ Zimmermann: Genesis. The Story of Apollo 8 . P. 171
  4. ↑ a b Apollo Image Atlas - AS08-14-2383 . 2012 from lpi.usra.edu, accessed October 8, 2018
  5. ↑ Apollo Image Collection ( Memento of March 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ NASA - Earthrise: The 45th Anniversary. Goddard Space Flight Center. December 20, 2013 on youtube.com; Retrieved December 25, 2013
  7. ^ A b W. David Woods, Frank O'Brien: Apollo 8 - Day 4: Lunar Orbit 4 . April 16, 2017 from history.nasa.gov, accessed October 8, 2018
  8. ^ Robert Poole: Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth . Yale University Press , New Haven, Connecticut, USA 2008, ISBN 0-300-13766-4 .
  9. ↑ Earthrise: Story behind our December Cover
  10. ↑ Paul D. Spudis: Earth Rising . May 15, 2014 from airspacemag.com, accessed December 23, 2015
  11. ^ A b John Noble Wilford: On Hand for Space History, as Superpowers Spar . From nytimes.com on July 13, 2009, accessed October 8, 2018
  12. ^ Earthrise 1968 . digitaljournalist.org; accessed on October 8, 2018
  13. ↑ Earthrise - The Most Influential Images of All Time , 100photos.time.com, accessed November 22, 2018
  14. ↑ Historical photo of the Lunar Orbiter 1For the first time Earth and Moon . deutschlandfunk .de, 23 August 2016