Earthrise

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth . . . home.

— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14

December 24^th, 1968 - Apollo 8.

Location: The Moon.

Earthrise, taken by William Anders during the first manned-mission to the moon, shows the Earth from the Moon. The Earth is in the center of the picture, taking up a very small portion of the image. Except for the lunar horizon and the Earth, the entire image is black, as the moon has no atmosphere. The viewing angle of the Earth is also different- North is right and South is left.

But what is the significance of the photo? Why does it mean so much for America and the world?

The answer is simple.

It showed us just how small the Earth is.

Today, we live in a world where anyone can see a high-quality satellite photo of anywhere in the world from any location, right down to the color of the car parked down the street. It’s almost as if we had the world in our pocket. Half a century ago, we could only see blurry television images of the Earth in black and white, showing only the topography of the Earth. We could not comprehend the scale of the universe; the world was the biggest thing we’d ever seen - it was our universe. Before this, we had never seen any photographs like this, and the Apollo missions changed everything. Our desire to travel to space, fueled by the launch of Sputnik 1 (Cпутник-1) only grew larger, resulting in several more missions to the Moon, which led to the development of various projects, including the launch of hundreds of satellites, and construction of the ISS.

The photo Earthrise shows our Earth in a completely different perspective; instead of photos with the Moon in the sky, Earthrise is an inversion- the Moon is the ground, while the Earth is dwarfed in comparison. Just by a quick glance at Earthrise, one can visualize just how enormous the universe- and even just our solar system- are. From our closest neighbor, the Moon, which is just a marble in the sky, to the Sun, the glorious ball light that fuels life on Earth. When we see Earthrise, we start to ponder the scale of things. Sure, we could fit over 1,000 Earths in Jupiter, but how much is that really?

This much.

There is an immeasurable amount of celestial objects in our solar system, an immeasurable amount of stars in our galaxy, an immeasurable amount of galaxies in the universe – we are nothing in comparison. The Sun is only a medium sized star; countless stars are unimaginably more massive than our own sun, and humanity has only scratched the surface of space exploration.

That day, Christmas Eve 1968, was when the world first saw the Earth from the Moon.

October 4^th, 1957- The launch of Sputnik.

The beginning of our journey into space.