Photo: NASA | Wikimedia Commons
Earthrise is a photograph taken by astronaut William Anders that tells the story of the first image of our planet captured from space in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, the first human spaceflight to reach the moon. Through personal accounts from the three astronauts and remarkable archival footage, this Emmy-nominated short film directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee in 2018 exposes their literally out-of-the-world experiences seeing our size in the universe. Wielding a powerful impact on the astronauts and the world, such perspective transcended national, political, and religious boundaries. Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman recalls, "It's only when you get into deeper space that you experience the total immersion in the heavens. The earth was the only thing in the entire universe -- of all this inky black void, Earth was there with a beautiful blue hue to it. The blue marble -- that's what it looked like." The mission's command module pilot James "Jim" Lovell echoed: "At that time, I suddenly realized that everything in life is relative. When you're in a room, your world revolves around those walls. When you're outside, your world revolves around what your eye can see. And suddenly, when you're in a spacecraft, you think in terms of oceans, [and] of islands." The iconic photos of the Earth from space taken on that mission have become some of the most reproduced images in history. On Earth Day today, 55 years later, Earthrise compels us to remember this shift, that prompts us to reflect on this minuscule "blue marble" as our shared home.
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