The Blue Marble. The Blue Marble, taken by either Ron Evans or Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 crew in 1972. The original photograph was taken with the South Pole facing the top, however this version is the most widely distributed. The Blue Marble is a photograph of Earth taken on December 7, 1972, from a distance of around 29,400 kilometers ...

The famous photograph of the whole Earth, taken in 1972 by the crew of the final Apollo mission and dubbed "The Blue Marble," is one of the most iconic images of our time. It has been used to express Earth's isolation and fragility and was adopted by the growing environmental movement and the annual Earth Day celebration started two years earlier.

Although no one found the words to say so at the time, the ‘Blue marble’ was a photographic manifesto for global justice. Blue Marble’s afterlives. The photograph has appeared across popular...