Earthrise, The Iconic Photo Taken 50 Years Ago Reminds Us That We Have Only One Home To Live

50 years on, the photo of the Earth taken by the Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968 is still one of the most iconic images in the entire history of space exploration, if not the history of humanity itself.

Earthrise

The spacecraft was on a mission to lay the groundwork for a Moon landing that would take place years later when Bill Anders spotted the Earth coming up over the horizon. Impressed by the grandeur of what he was seeing, Anders grabbed the camera and started taking pictures.

This year, to honor that memorable event, the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature of IAU (the International Astronomical Union) names the craters Ander’s Earthrise. As the Moon always faces the Earth in the same way, the craters will have that same grandstand view.

The picture marks a huge step in our history and forever changes that way we see ourselves in relation with the world out there, but half a century ago, it also acted as a warning to us all.

Earthrise, the name of the picture, was used to raise awareness of our impact on the planet in the 70s. Some may associate it with the very first environmental movement back then. This claim might still be a matter of debate but no one can deny that seeing the Earth as a tiny dot in comparison with the vast universe will remind us that we only have one place we can call home.

Our life expectancy is prolonged, our living standard is better than ever before. However, at the same time, we dump 5 trillion plastic pieces to the ocean; the number is growing fast as we speak. We are damaging the ozone layer but it is not healing itself. 60% of Mother Nature’s wildlife is dead because of our doing. It may take the nature 7 million years to recover from what we are doing to it.

The time we have is limited, only 10 years to fix our mistakes and we are nowhere near what we have to do.