We have to go back to the late 60s to trace the history of the first photograph of our planet. During the Cold War, America And the Soviet Union played their particular game of chess on the world board.
Some of the most important moves of that game are known The “Space Race” is a dogged struggle between two powers whose ultimate goal is to reach the moon. From this fight, a global hegemony would emerge as both nations sought to demonstrate their military and technological superiority over the enemy.
Are tardigrades colonizing the moon?
The space race, historically relatively brief, was intense and highly competitive. Finally, after enormous investment by both countries, intense political and propaganda campaigns, More than 20 missions and 23 astronaut deathsThe match ended in victory for the Americans Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind“.
Witnesses of the blue world
The story of one of Earth's firsts, which took place a few months ago, is particularly exciting. On December 21, 1968, NASA's Apollo 8 mission A successful departure from Cape Canaveral FloridaThanks to the United States, a multi-stage expendable space rocket Shani v. Its board members include: 84,000 hours of rigorous training spanning over 10 yearsIt was ready for any event except one: a spectacular image of our planet suspended in space.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell Y Bill Anders They were the first humans to leave the sphere of influence of Earth's gravity and fly around the Moon on its far side. Apollo 8 took 3 days to reach its destination and about 20 hours to orbit it, it managed to circle ten times.
paradoxically, During the first 3 orbits of the satellite The ship was on its way back to Earth. Until the fourth lunar orbit, Commander Frank Borman followed the mission's flight plan and orchestrated a maneuver to steer the spacecraft toward Earth. He was the first to visualize the blue planet in all its glory from space.
Planet Earth is our home in the universe
“The Earthrise”
Bill Anders would immortalize that moment. The snapshot was taken on Christmas Eve 1968. Named The EarthriseIn its translation into Spanish Dawn of the Earth, The photograph shows a world emerging from the darkness of space on a lunar landscape illuminated by the sun.. It showed a strong contrast between the grey, desolate, static and lifeless landscape of the Moon and the friendly blue and white sphere of the fertile Earth; An oasis of warmth and life in the midst of a barren, cold and hostile desert.
Not in vain, already in 1948, the prestigious British cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle He predicted that correctly The first images of Earth from space changed the human perception of our planet forever. It was like that. Formed as an iconic reminder of the loneliness of our isolated and fragile fragile world. Thus “Earthrice” gIt had a huge impact on the public consciousness and over time, it would become the symbol of many environmental movements.
Since then, howeverOnly a privileged few could contemplate the entire Earth from spaceThe image of the blue planet was captured on several occasions and from different corners of the solar system.
We have selected a few, because of the context in which they were taken, beyond the atmosphere that protects them before and after the adventures of Homo sapiens; A change in the perception of the world in which he lives. A thorough treatment of humility for a species that lives in its own reality, and has never been better told in its particular blue bubble.And sometimes, acting as owner and master of everything, one forgets the weakness of the planet in the midst of the vast universe.
