Earth - 1

Home. These beautiful images are each composites of six separate orbits taken on Jan. 23, 2012 by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. Compiled by NASA Goddard scientist Norman Kuring, the images have the perspective of a viewer looking down from 12,742km (7,918 miles) above the Earth's surface. In December of 1968, the Apollo 8 crew flew from the Earth to the Moon and back again. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders were launched atop a Saturn V rocket, circled the Moon ten times in their command module, and returned to Earth on December 27. As the Apollo 8 command module rounded the farside of the Moon, the crew could look toward the lunar horizon and see the Earth appear to rise. The famous picture that resulted, below left, shows a distant blue Earth above the Moon's limb, and was a marvelous gift to the world.