{"id":5432,"date":"2023-01-20T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=5432"},"modified":"2023-01-11T05:44:40","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T05:44:40","slug":"looking-back-from-beyond-the-moon-how-views-from-space-have-changed-the-way-we-see-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/looking-back-from-beyond-the-moon-how-views-from-space-have-changed-the-way-we-see-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back from beyond the Moon: how views from space have changed the way we see Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n A new view of Earth and its place.\n NASA<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nAlice Gorman<\/a>, Flinders University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

A photograph taken by NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft has given us a new perspective on our home planet. <\/p>\n\n

The snap was taken during the Artemis I mission, which sent an uncrewed vehicle on a journey around the Moon and back in preparation for astronauts\u2019 planned lunar return in 2025. <\/p>\n\n

We get pictures of Earth every day from satellites and the International Space Station. But there\u2019s something different about seeing ourselves from the other side of the Moon.<\/p>\n\n

How does this image compare to other iconic views of Earth from the outside?<\/p>\n\n

Earthrise<\/h2>\n\n

In December 1968, three astronauts were orbiting the Moon to test systems in preparation for the Apollo 11 landing. When they saw Earth rise over the lunar horizon, they knew this was something special. The crew scrambled to find colour film in time to capture it.<\/p>\n\n

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\n Excerpt from the Apollo 8 flight transcript, at the moment the crew observed the Earth rise.<\/span>\n NASA<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

Photographer Galen Rowell called the resulting image \u201cthe most influential environmental photograph ever taken\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

Six years earlier, biologist Rachel Carson\u2019s book Silent Spring<\/a> drew public attention to how human industries were harming terrestrial ecosystems. The book ignited the environmental movement and laid the ground for the reception of Earthrise.<\/p>\n\n

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\n Earthrise.<\/span>\n NASA<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

The economist Barbara Ward<\/a>, author of Spaceship Earth<\/a> and one of the founders of sustainable development<\/a>, said:<\/p>\n\n

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Above all, we are the generation to see through the eyes of the astronauts the astonishing \u2018earthrise\u2019 of our small and beautiful planet above the\nbarren horizons of the moon. Indeed, we in this generation would be some\nkind of psychological monstrosity if this were not an age of intense, passionate, committed debate and search.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

She saw Earthrise as part of the underpinning of a \u201cmoral community\u201d that would enable a more equitable distribution of the planet\u2019s wealth.<\/p>\n\n

Blue marble<\/h2>\n\n

The last Apollo mission took place in 1972. On their way to the Moon, the astronauts snapped the whole Earth illuminated by the Sun, giving it the appearance of a glass marble. It is one of the most reproduced photographs in history.<\/p>\n\n

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\n The Blue Marble.<\/span>\n NASA<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

Like Earthrise, this image became an emblem of the environmental movement. It showed a planet requiring stewardship at the global scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blue Marble is often used to illustrate the Gaia hypothesis<\/a>, developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1960s and \u201970s. The hypothesis proposes that Earth is a complex self-regulating system which acts to maintain a state of equilibrium. While the theory is not widely accepted today, it provided a catalyst for a holistic approach to Earth\u2019s environment as a biosphere in delicate balance.<\/p>\n\n

The impression of a single, whole Earth, however, conceals the fact that not all nations or communities are equally responsible for upsetting the balance and creating environmental disequilibrium. <\/p>\n\n

Pale blue dot<\/h2>\n\n

Our farthest view of Earth comes from the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990. At the request of visionary astronomer Carl Sagan<\/a>, it turned its camera back on Earth for one last time at a distance of 6 billion kilometres. <\/p>\n\n

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\n Pale Blue Dot, updated by Kevin M. Gill using modern image-processing techniques, 2020.<\/span>\n NASA<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

If Blue Marble evoked a fragile Earth, Pale Blue Dot emphasised Earth\u2019s insignificance in the cosmos. <\/p>\n\n

Sagan added a human dimension to his interpretation of the image:<\/p>\n\n

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Consider again that dot. That\u2019s here. That\u2019s home. That\u2019s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you\u2019ve ever heard of, every human being that ever was, lived out their lives.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n