
SIGNIFICANCE
Earthrise is in my humble opinion the most important picture a human ever took. It resembles the resilience, the “can do any thing we put our minds to” attitude, and the exemplary feat humans can achieve when we work in tandem to a higher common goal. It’s a resemblance of the human spirit, our ability as a species to dream big, and achieve great things. This picture always makes me turn to mush, the same way looking at my children’s pictures when they were little babies does.
This was an unplanned photo taken on the Christmas Eve of 1968, by the Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, as it was the first manned space flight to the moon, the task at hand was to take as many pictures of the moon as possible for scientific research and for planning future lunar missions. After firing out tons of photos of the crater filled and lonely celestial body, the astronauts came up around the far side of the moon, and for the first time they could turn around and look back at Earth and they saw rising from the horizon of the dull, lifeless, and lonely moon, and against the back drop of black, and vast nothingness of space, our blue planet, full of color, and full of life, mesmerizing them and changing their perspective of our world and everything in it forever.
Landing on the moon, arguably the biggest human achievement, signified the future and the infinite possibilities ahead, but the Earthrise picture arguable the most important subject of reflection that awakens us to realize who we are and where we’re from.
REFLECT
It is the first time that we can reflect back on ourselves and really see how small and insignificant we are in the vastness of space and in the grand scheme of our universe. And what a beautiful sight it is. It’s a different perspective looking at the earth from earth’s orbit, as opposed to looking at it from the moon. Close up the Earth looks beautiful and majestic, but from the moon we really get a whole new perspective of how small, fragile, and insignificant we are in the vastness of the universe. We are just like one grain of sand on the ocean bed of the entire earth if you want to measure to scale. The bickering, the bad blood, the terrorism, the wars, and all the petty problems that we have on earth becomes so insignificant and pointless from this perspective. This this the only home we have. It should be mandatory that every world leader and business tycoon have this picture hanging in their office to give them perspective what it is exactly they are fighting for. We travelled approximately 238,000 kilometers to another celestial body in the name of exploration but the most valuable thing that we ended up discovering was ourselves. Our Earth, our home, and looking back onto ourselves. The great Winston Churchill said "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see."
PRESERVATION & COOPERATION
NASA didn’t only launch men and rockets into space, this picture also launched the launched the Environmental Movement. I’m biased of course but I think our’s is the most beautiful planet in the solar system and we should cherish it and take care of it the best that we can and stop the destruction of this beautiful blue ball that’s full of diverse life for short term profits. The only other picture that will give this a run for it’s money will be a picture of the Earth rising from Mars. But it will not have the same kind of impact as it did when it was taken. With the technology now you can probably generate a picture of the earth rising from Mars through an app on your phone. Imagine the amount of effort, money, technology, manpower, and collaboration it took to take this picture back in 1968. When are look back at our blue planet from this vantage point there are no borders, religions, countries. We are all the citizens of this Earth and WE ARE ALL ONE.
FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHY NUTJOBS
This photo was captured with a modified Hasselblad 500 EL camera with a Zeiss Sonnar 250MM telephoto lens (1/250th of a second at f/11). Kodak modified the Ektachrome ASA 64 film to be more suitable for the lighting conditions and other challenges of taking photos in space.
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