Iconic Space Images #4
The Blue Marble
The Blue Marble is a photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of Apollo 17. It was taken from a distance of 45,000 kilometers from the earth. It is one of the most reproduced images in human history.
The image is particularly iconic because it is one of the few images where the full disc of the earth is illuminated. This is because the astronauts who took the picture had the sun to their back. It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic.The cyclone to the top right of the image shows the 1972 Tamil Nadu cyclone that killed over 80 people two days before, on Dec 5.
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This image was taken by the last crewed mission to the Moon. As all three astronauts on board — Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Jack Schmitt — had been taking pictures, we still aren’t sure who took this specific one. Images of the full globe had been taken previously, especially by satellites, but this picture hit the media right during the peak of an environmentalism movement throughout America and Europe.
There have been multiple subsequent Blue Marble images. In 2002, NASA released a series of images of the entire earth that were taken using data from multiple satellites and are the most detailed true color images of the earth. But of course, thanks to the human touch, this image still stands out as special and iconic.
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