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This is great news: the working group of the International Astronomical Union on the nomenclature of planetary systems – the group of astronomers responsible for giving official names to astronomical objects and to the characteristics of the solar system – approved the designation of two craters located on the other side of the Moon Photo "Earthrise" taken during the Apollo 8 mission. Even better: the craters appear on the photo and bear the name of the photo Earthrise herself even!
The incredible photograph of December 24, 1968 – almost 50 years ago now – was the first of its kind to be taken. It shows our blue-green planet rising darkly on the pale gray of Moonscape in the form of the Apollo 8 control module orbiting from far away. side of the moon towards the near side. No human being had ever seen the Earth hang in the space above the moon like that with his own eyes. The impact on our species was profound; this photo is actually credited for launching the environmental movement.
Two of the craters seen in the photo have now been named: the largest one is now called "Ander's Earthrise" and the smaller "8 Homeward".
How poetic and charming it is!
Craters had names before, or more exactly designations: Pastor T for the bigger one and Ganskiy M for the smaller one. It is common that the smaller craters on the Moon bear the names of larger craters nearby, using letters after the name of the largest crater to designate them. In this case, Pasteur is a very large crater 233 km wide, and Pasteur T (now Ander's Earthrise) is about 40 km wide; Ganskiy has a width of about 43 km and Ganskiy M (now 8 at home) a width of 14 km.
The two craters are barely located on the other side of the moon. The Moon turns once for each time it gravitates around the Earth, a dance that always keeps one side facing Earth – the near face – and one face off – the hidden face. If you stand on the other side of the Moon, the Earth will never appear in your sky, whereas if you stand on the other side, it is always in the sky.
However, the Apollo 8 capsule was in orbit, about 110 km above the lunar surface. This means that they could look a little around the lunar edge, see the Earth even technically beyond (and watch it get up as they were heading towards it). 8 To the house, the starting point of the Earth is 7 ° around the lunar edge and that of Ander at about 10 °.
This means that they can not be seen from here on Earth. They can only be observed by space flight. I find this fitting.
The largest crater is named after Bill Anders, pilot of the lunar module Apollo 8, who took the picture. For a while, there was a controversy over who actually took it. For years, the official story was that Frank Borman had taken it, but Anders was challenging it. It turns out that Anders actually took it, and the story that underlies this confusion is actually a very good story, resolved through the detective work of space historian Andy Chaikin. I suggest you take a few minutes to read it. This will give you even more perspective on this epic photograph.
Technicians from the NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center scientific visualization studio have created a phenomenal simulation of what astronauts have seen using elevation data and observations from the Lunar Reconnaissance Observer and Blue Data. Marble to simulate Earth (courtesy Reto Stockli (NASA / GSFC)). In this animation, the Earth rises when the astronauts turn around the Moon and stops twice to juxtapose the photographs taken by Bill Anders (one in grayscale, then one in color; the delay between them is due to the fact that Anders had to change the film in the camera).
It's funny, given the current effortless access to information (and perhaps even overloading it), to think that in 1968 a single photo could have such an impact. We now see so many beautiful and impressive images returned from space observatories and probes visiting asteroids, planets, moons and comets that, ironically, their individual impact dilutes visually even though their true scientific value continually add to our knowledge. That's why I try to take the time to introduce special readers, my readers, while drinking them before I can write them.
It's such a remarkable moment, when we learn so quickly about the Universe and we learn our own context inside it. It is sometimes important to remember the critical moments that showed us that.
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