Earthrise - Forty years ago and now

Forty years ago, on Dec. 24, 1968, astronauts on Apollo 8, having made the first human passage around the moon, were stunned to notice an “Earth Rise.” In 2007, an HD camera aboard Japan’s Kaguya satellite videotaped earth ‘rising’ and ’setting.’

These images bring home the lonely, extraordinary nature of this “pale blue dot.”

Visit http://www.nytimes.com/dotearth
and http://www.jaxa.jp for more info.

Music by Peter Rundquist.

Note: confusion over who exclaimed about the Earth view has been cleared up. It was Bill Anders, not Frank Borman. Andy says he’d stake his reputation on this. The official NASA transcript still says “Anders or Borman”.