Apollo images such as \u2018Earthrise\u2019, captured by Bill Anders during Apollo 8, and \u2018The Blue Marble\u2019, captured by the Apollo 17 crew, are not just famous images of Earth, they are among the most widely reproduced photos of all time.<\/p>\n
More about Apollo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The contrast of the delicate blue and white sphere with the inhospitable void and barren Moon became the iconic image for the growing environmentalist movement. And the image of a world without borders helped people see a world more united than divided.<\/p>\n But why haven\u2019t these photos, great as they are, been eclipsed by others over the last five decades?<\/span><\/p>\n A key reason is that since the Apollo Program, astronauts <\/span>have got no higher than low-Earth orbit \u2013 less than 1% of the way to the <\/span>Moon.<\/p>\n Taking a photo of Earth from there is like taking a portrait of a friend with the camera less than a centimetre from their face.<\/p>\n You might be able to capture the texture of their skin, but any attempt to render their entire face would be distorted.<\/span><\/p>\n And while some of the autonomous spacecraft destined for other worlds turned their sensors around for a parting shot, their cameras weren\u2019t designed for the job, producing inferior images.<\/p>\n In contrast, as the Apollo astronauts travelled out towards the Moon, they reached the perfect distances for planetary portraiture.<\/p>\n NASA had provided some of the world\u2019s best equipment for photographing Earth: Hasselblad 500 EL cameras, Zeiss lenses and 70mm Kodak Ektachrome film.<\/p>\n They were thus able to faithfully record Earth\u2019s true colours as they appeared to the human eye.<\/p>\n If we look at this image from Apollo 16 (above), what we see isn\u2019t the bright green and blue circle that has come to represent our planet.<\/p>\n Instead, it is primarily a world of blue and white, with brown continents and just a suggestion of muted green in places of lush vegetation:<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to look out the window to see this incredible sight of the whole circle of the Earth,\u201d said Apollo 16\u2019s Charlie Duke.<\/p>\n \u201cOceans were crystal blue, the land was brown, and the clouds and the snow were pure white. And that jewel of Earth was just hung up in the blackness of space.\u201d<\/p>\n Struck by the beauty of the most famous photographs, I wondered if there were more. So began a journey that would occupy my evenings over the next three years.<\/p>\n I hunted through all 18,000 Hasselblad photos from the Apollo missions for the best images that time forgot, and digitally restored them to bring out their full glory.<\/p>\n It was these lost images of Apollo that were the real rivals to the most well-known ones.<\/p>\n One of my favourite hidden gems is the crescent earthrise from Apollo 12<\/a> (above).<\/p>\n It was captured by Richard Gordon as he circled the Moon alone in the Command Module, awaiting his companions\u2019 return.\u00a0It was overlooked for years as the original negative was poorly exposed and washed out.<\/p>\n But as soon as I properly adjusted the levels, it took my breath away, revealing a haunting scene with an even more graceful and fragile view of the Earth and Moon than Apollo 8\u2019s famous \u2018Earthrise\u2019 photo.<\/p>\n I chose it for the cover of my book The Precipice<\/i>, which looks at humanity\u2019s own fragility in these challenging times.<\/p>\n Another one of my favourite photos is from Apollo 13<\/a>. Two days in, the craft suffered a dramatic explosion, venting the contents of the Service Module\u2019s oxygen tanks into space, leaving the Command Module without enough breathable air to get home.<\/p>\n This ethereal photo (below), at first appears to show the Moon, but it is really the crescent Earth amidst the ghostly reflections of the Lunar Module.<\/p>\n They were 80,000km and seven hours away from safety \u2013 this photo captures this stolen moment, yearning for home.<\/p>\n It was an absolute treat to be able to play a role in reviving these images. There are so many more great photos that have never been restored.<\/p>\n But, since raw scans of all the images are publicly available, anyone can try their hand.<\/p>\n View more Apollo images via the Apollo Archive Flickr page<\/a>. See more of Toby\u2019s Apollo images at tobyord.com\/earth<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n By Toby Ord Published: Tuesday, 31 August 2021 at 12:00 am The photos of Earth against the blackness of space are perhaps the greatest legacy of the Apollo Program. As Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders said on returning from the first voyage beyond Earth\u2019s orbit: \u201cWe came all this way to explore the Moon, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Toby Ord Published: Tuesday, 31 August 2021 at 12:00 am The photos of Earth against the blackness of space are perhaps the greatest legacy of the Apollo Program. As Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders said on returning from the first voyage beyond Earth\u2019s orbit: \u201cWe came all this way to explore the Moon, and…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""The\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2019\/07\/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17-1b88e23-e1562061384864.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C375"\" "\\"\"The\\"")
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<\/div>Restoring the Apollo Earth photographs<\/b><\/h1>\n
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<\/div>More Apollo images of Earth<\/strong><\/h1>\n
![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2021\/08\/01-Apollo-Earth-image-AS04-01-0550-439bd61-e1630412024237.jpeg?quality=90&resize=620%2C620"\" "\\"\"A\\"")
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<\/div>![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2021\/08\/06-Apollo-Earth-image-AS11-37-5434-965d88c-e1630412079736.jpeg?quality=90&resize=620%2C620"\" "\\"\"A\\"")
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