The flat earthers’ nightmare: 59 years since the first photo of Earth from the Moon
On August 23, 1966, something historic was achieved: photographing the Earth from the Moon. It is 59 years since this event, known as ‘The Image of the Century’, a milestone achieved by NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1. In addition, this photo first arrived in Spain, specifically at the Robledo de Chavela space station in Madrid.
It was captured by William ‘Bill’ Anders, a member of the Apollo 8 mission crew, being the first person to see it in history, along with his companions Frank Borman and James Lovell.
The earth photo that is worrying thousands
In the black and white image, you can see the lunar surface and, in the background, the Earth. A snapshot that would also serve to dismantle flat-Earth theories, since the spherical shape of the planet can be seen.
Evidently, this photo went around the world, showing for the first time what the place where human beings live is like. However, this photo has been treated to improve its quality. In 2008, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project took care of it, so it is not exactly that photograph.
To achieve this, a 68 kg Eastman Kodak camera was used, which was later used as a spy camera in the Cold War by one of the US intelligence agencies, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and also the Samos E-1 spy satellite.
The real mission of Orbiter 1 was not to photograph the Earth
But this was something totally accidental, as its real mission was to photograph possible landing sites for the Apollo and Surveyor 1, but in doing so, in one of them the planet Earth was seen in the background.
It was until the 28th that it was taking pictures, achieving a total of 205 images, 38 of which were taken in the initial orbit and 167 in lower orbits, covering an area of 5.18 million square kilometers.
