The Only Photo Taken of the Entire Earth By a Person

It helped usher in the environmental movement and became the most widely reproduced photo in history. But today it’s not the Earth we’re seeing anymore.

You’ve seen this picture. You know what it is at least. It’s the Earth — the planet we’re on right now. You’ve seen pictures like this many times before. But in all likelihood you’ve seen this exact photo. That’s because it’s probably the most widely reproduced photograph in history.

It’s called The Blue Marble.

It has appeared in innumerable environmental campaigns as well as countless corporate logos, movies, video games, and even Microsoft Windows 98. More than that, it is the only photo of the entire Earth taken by an actual person.

It was shot in 1972 during the Apollo 17 Moon mission. Which human took it is up for debate but there are only three options — Astronauts Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans. There were 5 non-human crew members — pocket mice — but the chances one of them took the photo are highly unlikely.

None of the astronauts were supposed to take a photo of the Earth at that moment. It wasn’t scheduled into the mission docket. Houston hadn’t relayed a request and none of…