Image Source: Wikipedia
The picture above, more commonly known as “The Blue Marble” photo, is the last full-color, full-frame picture of Earth taken by a human being. Taken mere hours after launch by the crew of Apollo 17 on Dec. 7, 1972 at a distance of about 45,000 milometers, the Blue Marble was the first clear, color image of the entire illuminated face of the earth.
The original caption from NASA:
"View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast."
Here are a few facts regarding the photo:
· The photograph’s official NASA designation is AS17-148-22727. AS17 means Apollo 17, 148 indicates roll 148, and 22727 signifies frame 22,727 – a very straightforward label for a very spectacular photo.
· The image is one of the few to show a fully illuminated Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance of a glass marble, hence the name.
· A 70-millimeter Hasselblad camera with an 80-millimeter lens was used to take the photograph.
· NASA officially credits the image to the entire Apollo 17 crew – Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Jack Schmitt – all of whom took photographs during the mission with the on-board Hasselblad. The identity of the actual photographer remains a mystery, with the crewmembers often taking turns claiming they were the one who took the picture.
· Apollo 17 was the last manned lunar mission. No one has been far enough from the Earth since then where a photographer could record a whole-Earth image such as The Blue Marble (although the whole planet Earth has been photographed by many unmanned spacecraft missions since 1972).
Ironically, despite its fame, most displays of the Blue Marble photograph aren't true to the actual photo. Just do a Google search and all the returned results will show photos that are technically “wrong”. Most of the Blue Marble photos are upside down! The trajectory of the Apollo 17 spacecraft meant that the flight deck of the Command Module was oriented with the south pole of earth facing up. So, strictly speaking, any displays of the Blue Marble photograph with Antarctica at the bottom of the frame are technically incorrect.
Check my photo above – this is the “correct” photo.
So when Google finally indexes it, there will be at least one “correct” photo of The Blue Marble in its search results.
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Way back during the time when science still believed that the earth was flat, the prophet Isaiah, some 2,400 years earlier, tells us that the earth is round: "It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22). This is not a reference to a flat disk, as some skeptic maintain, but to a sphere. It was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail the Atlantic Ocean and discover the Americas.
~Florent Flora
