The Blue Marble 1

The Blue Marble

View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. Thistranslunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the

Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made itpossible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in theSouthern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. TheArabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island

off the coast of Africa is Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon towardthe northeast.

The Blue Marble is a famous photographof the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, bythe crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at adistance of about 45,000 kilometers(28,000 mi).

The name has also been applied by NASAto a 2012 series of image data sets coveringthe entire globe at relatively high resolution,created by carefully sifting throughsatellite-captured sequences taken over time,to eliminate as much cloud cover as possiblefrom the collated set of images.

Because of most cultures orienteering theworld with Antarctica to the bottom, NASAflipped the original picture upside-downbefore releasing it to the general public.

The photograph

The snapshot—taken by astronauts onDecember 7, 1972, at 5:39 a.m. EST (10:39UTC)—is one of the most widely distributedphotographic images in existence. Theimage is one of the few to show a fully illuminated Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they tookthe image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance and size of a glass marble, hence the name.

The Blue Marble 2

HistoryThe photograph was taken about 5 hours and 6 minutes after launch of the Apollo 17 mission, and about 1 hour 54minutes after the spacecraft left its parking orbit around the Earth, to begin its trajectory to the Moon. The time ofApollo 17's launch, 12:33 a.m. EST, meant that Africa was in daylight during the early hours of the spacecraft'sflight. With the December solstice approaching, Antarctica was also illuminated.

The Blue Marble photograph in its originalorientation

1967 image from ATS-3 satellite

An Indian Ocean cyclone can be seen in the top right of the image.This storm had brought flooding and high winds to the Indian state ofTamil Nadu on December 5, two days before the photograph wastaken.

The photograph's official NASA designation is AS17-148-22727.(NASA photograph AS17-148-22726, taken just before and nearlyidentical to 22727, is also used as a full-Earth image.) The photographwas originally oriented with the south pole at the top, with the island ofMadagascar visible just left of center, and the continent of Africa at itsright. However, the image was turned upside-down to fit the traditionalview.

The photographer used a 70-millimeter Hasselblad camera with an80-millimeter Zeiss lens.[1] NASA officially credits the image to theentire Apollo 17 crew – Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and JackSchmitt – all of whom took photographs during the mission with theon-board Hasselblad. Although evidence examined after the missionsuggests that it was likely Jack Schmitt.

Apollo 17 was the last manned lunar mission. No one since has beenfar enough from Earth to photograph a whole-Earth image such as TheBlue Marble, but whole-Earth images have been taken by manyunmanned spacecraft missions.The Blue Marble was not the first clear image taken of an illuminatedface of the Earth, since similar shots from satellite had already beenmade as early as 1967.[2] Counterculture activists had been among thefirst to cherish these images as icons of a new global consciousness.[3] The Apollo 17 image, however, releasedduring a surge in environmental activism during the 1970s, was acclaimed by the wide public as a depiction ofEarth's frailty, vulnerability, and isolation amid the vast expanse of space. NASA archivist Mike Gentry hasspeculated that The Blue Marble is the most widely distributed image in human history.

The Blue Marble 3

The satellite imaging series

Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right).

Animation of Blue Marble Next Generation monthly global images.

In 2002, NASA released an extensive set ofsatellite-captured imagery, includingprepared images suitable for direct humanviewing, as well as complete sets suitablefor use in preparing further works. At thetime, 1 km/pixel was the most detailedimagery available for free, and permitted forreuse without a need for extensivepreparatory work to eliminate cloud coverand conceal missing data, or to parsespecialized data formats. The data alsoincluded a similarly manually assembledcloud-cover and night-lights image sets, atlower resolutions.A subsequent release was made in 2005,named Blue Marble Next Generation,[4]

produced with the aid of automatedimage-sifting, which enabled the inclusionof a complete, cloud-free globe 'frozen intime' for each month of the year, at evenhigher resolution (500 m/pixel).[5] Theoriginal release of a single-image setcovering the entire globe had, of necessity,not been a true reflection of the extent ofseasonal snow-and-vegetative cover across both hemispheres, but this newer release closely modeled the changes ofthe seasons.

A number of interactive viewers for these data has also been released, among them a music visualization for the PS3that is based on the texture data.[6][7]

The Blue Marble 4

Other applications of the term "blue marble"

A composite satellite image being billed as the "Blue Marble 2012".

Subsequent similar images of Earth (includingcomposites at much higher resolution) have also beentermed "blue marble" images, and the phrase "bluemarble" (as well as the picture itself) is frequently used,as in the Earth flag by environmental activistorganizations or companies attempting to promote anenvironmentally conscious image. There has also beena children's television program called Big Blue Marble.

Blue Marble 2012

On 25 January 2012, NASA released a compositeimage of the western hemisphere of Earth entitled BlueMarble 2012. The picture was widely viewed, loggingover 3.1 million views on the Flickr image hostingwebsite within the first week of release. On 2 February2012, NASA released a companion to this new BlueMarble, showing a composite image of the easternhemisphere from data obtained on 23 January 2012.

The picture is composed of data obtained by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument onboard the Suomi NPP satellite on 4 January 2012. The data was obtained from six orbits of the Earth by the SuomiNPP over an eight hour period.

Black Marble 2012The NASA released on December 5, 2012 nighttime views of the Earth called Black Marble during an annualmeeting of earth scientists held by the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The images display all thehuman and natural matter that glows and can be sensed from space. The data was acquired by the Suomi NPPsatellite in April and October 2012 and then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide arealistic view of the planet. The Suomi NPP satellite completed 312 orbits and gathered 2.5 terabytes of data to get aclear shot of every parcel of the Earth’s land surface. Named for satellite meteorology pioneer Verner Suomi, thesatellite flies over any given point on Earth’s surface twice each day and flies 512 miles above the surface in a polarorbit according to the Washington Post.According to NASA, the nighttime views were made possible by the new satellite’s “day-night band” of the VisibleInfrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. The so-called VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green tonear-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires,and reflected moonlight. Auroras, fires, and other stray light have been removed in the case of the Black Marbleimages to emphasize the city lights. The NASA stated that nighttime images can be used for numerous purposes:

Social scientists and demographers have used night lights to model the spatial distribution of economicactivity, of constructed surfaces, and of populations. Planners and environmental groups have used mapsof lights to select sites for astronomical observatories and to monitor human development around parksand wildlife refuges. Electric power companies, emergency managers, and news media turn to nightlights to observe blackouts.

The Blue Marble 5

References[1] http:/ / history. nasa. gov/ alsj/ a11/ a11-hass. html[2] (http:/ / library. ssec. wisc. edu/ spinscan/ search. php?txtLocalDay1=& txtLocalDay2=& op1=AND& selMeanTimeBound=none&

txtMeanTime=& op2=AND& selQuality=%good+ whole+ earth%& op3=AND& numOfRecs=48& ordering=time_asc& submit=Search&listing=slides) Images of the Earth taken from ATS-3 November 1967 till March 1969

[3] (http:/ / www. wholeearth. com/ uploads/ 2/ Image/ covers/ thumbs-md/ md-fall-1968-1010-cover. jpg) The front cover of the Fall 1968edition of the Whole Earth Catalog showing the AST-3 image of 10 Nov 1967

[4] Blue Marble Next Generation Project (http:/ / www. bluemarble. ch/ bluemarble/ Projects/ Entries/ 2005/ 1/1_Blue_Marble_Next_Generation. html)

[5] Blue Marble Next Generation at NASA's Earth Observatory (http:/ / earthobservatory. nasa. gov/ Features/ BlueMarble/ )[6] Gamasutra - Special: Q-Games On PS3's 'Gaia' Music Visualizer (http:/ / www. gamasutra. com/ php-bin/ news_index. php?story=16748)[7] Blue Marble Next Generation : Feature Articles on Earthobservatory.nasa.gov (http:/ / earthobservatory. nasa. gov/ Newsroom/ BlueMarble/ )

External links• NASA history (http:/ / earthobservatory. nasa. gov/ Newsroom/ BlueMarble/ BlueMarble_history. html) of Blue

Marble image releases

1972 photograph• The one, the only, photograph of Earth (http:/ / neil. fraser. name/ writing/ earth/ ) a short list of places in which

the image has been used.• Apollo Image Atlas (http:/ / www. lpi. usra. edu/ research/ apollo/ catalog/ 70mm/ magazine/ ?148) Photos from

magazine NN of the 70 mm Hasselblad camera used on Apollo 17 (includes the Blue Marble photo and othersquite similar to it)

21st century NASA composite images• Blue Marble (http:/ / visibleearth. nasa. gov/ view_rec. php?id=2429) (2002)

• Blue Marble Mapserver (http:/ / www. geobserver. com/ worldview_eng. php) Web interface for viewing smallsections of the above

• Blue Marble: Next Generation (http:/ / earthobservatory. nasa. gov/ Newsroom/ BlueMarble/ ) (2005; one pictureper month)• Blue Marble Navigator (http:/ / www. blue-marble. de) Web interface for viewing local sections of the above,

incl. links to other such interfaces, download sites etc.• Blue Marble: Next Generation in NASA World Wind (http:/ / worldwind. arc. nasa. gov/ bluemarble. html)

• Wired: New Satellite Takes Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth (http:/ / www. wired. com/ wiredscience/ 2012/01/ blue-planet/ ) with link to 2012 Composite in Super High Resolution.

• "Earth at Night 2012: It’s the end of the night as you know it; you’ll see fine." from Michael Carlowicz atDecember 5, 2012 (http:/ / earthobservatory. nasa. gov/ Features/ NightLights/ ) NASA Earth Observatory sitewith various links around the 2012 Black Marble images

Article Sources and Contributors 6

Article Sources and ContributorsThe Blue Marble  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=589788767  Contributors: 28421u2232nfenfcenc, 3FreeFish, 83d40m, A bit iffy, A. Parrot, AgadaUrbanit, Aldis90, AliceMudgarden, Aljullu, AltiusBimm, Ancheta Wis, Andycjp, AnonMoos, Anonimski, Anthrcer, Autusgo, Awiseman, B, B.d.mills, Bact, Bethereds, BoarGraphics, Bob Castle, Boneillhawk,Bowlhover, BrOnXbOmBr21, BrokenSegue, Bryan Derksen, Bubba73, Caeruleancentaur, Calair, Cam, Cantus, CapitalR, Chris 73, Cimon Avaro, Cmglee, ColinBoylett, Convicted SerialThriller, Daniel andersson, Darkness Shines, Dave.Dunford, Daytonduck, Dbachmann, Dbenbenn, Deglr6328, DemocraticLuntz, Desiphral, Dforest, Discospinster, Don't give an Ameriflag,Drmarkmulligan, Dusty777, DynamoDegsy, E Wing, E-Kartoffel, E2eamon, EVula, EamonnPKeane, Ego White Tray, EikwaR, Epiphoney, Fcy, Fieldday-sunday, Filanca, Florian Blaschke,Flyer22, Freddy Gretna, GGG65, Gaff, Ghepeu, Gikü, GoingBatty, GregorB, Hairy Dude, Haljackey, Hamiltondaniel, Hayden c2, HereToHelp, Hmcnally, Hooloovoo, HorsePunchKid,Howcheng, Hvkhvk, Infrogmation, Itsmine, Ivan Štambuk, JHCC, JJ Harrison, JMK, JQF, Jacob1207, JadziaLover, Jahoe, JameiLei, Japanese Searobin, JasonAQuest, Jianhui67, John, Jonverve,Joseph Solis in Australia, Joshtaco, Joshuapaquin, JuergenL, Jurema Oliveira, Kain Nihil, KathrynLybarger, Kbh3rd, Keegscee, Kieranjiwa, Kitmaster, Kmccoy, Knowledge Seeker, Ktr101,Kudz75, Kuralyov, Kurtle, Kyorosuke, L1nuxH4ck, Latitude0116, Lerdsuwa, Liberatus, Lilac Soul, Little Mountain 5, LonelyMarble, Lovibond, Magister Mathematicae, MakeRocketGoNow,Marcika, Mark Foskey, MarkSweep, Mdf, Mean as custard, Mikep2008a, Minesweeper, Mortense, Mouse is back, Mythpage88, N2e, Nampelkafe, NewEnglandYankee, Newone, Nightscream,Norm, Northgrove, O'Dea, Okki, Omphaloscope, OneTopJob6, OptimumCoder, P3Y229, Papa Lima Whiskey 2, Pawyilee, Photoguy3829, Phuzion, Piledhigheranddeeper, Plasticbadge, Prezbo,Random user 8384993, Recury, Reginmund, Reisio, Retostockli, Reywas92, Rich Farmbrough, Ricky81682, Rizzoj, Rjwoodbury, Sam Francis, Seth Ilys, Slikraft, Spidermine, Stepthis, Stevenj,Stevertigo, Superjaberwocky, Sverdrup, Textangel, Theincredibleulyses, Theopolisme, Thingg, Tide rolls, TomTime0000, Tomer T, Trieste, UnlistedVermin, UpstateNYer, Usually Right, Vanhelsing, Wavelength, Widr, Wjnichols, XJaM, Xp54321, Yamanam, YellowAssessmentMonkey, Yellowmuffintop, Yuriybrisk, Z10x, Zalgo, Zellin, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Марсианскийхро, 172 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsImage:Apollo_17_Image_Of_Earth_From_Space.jpeg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_17_Image_Of_Earth_From_Space.jpeg  License: Public Domain Contributors: NASAimage:Apollo17WorldReversed.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo17WorldReversed.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Original uploader wasLatitude0116 at en.wikipedia (original upload date: 2006-08-01)File:ATSIII 10NOV67 153107.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:ATSIII_10NOV67_153107.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Jahoe, LiberatusImage:BlueMarble-2001-2002.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:BlueMarble-2001-2002.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Apoc2400Image:BlueMarble monthlies animation.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:BlueMarble_monthlies_animation.gif  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASA imagesby Reto StöckliFile:North America from low orbiting satellite Suomi NPP.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:North_America_from_low_orbiting_satellite_Suomi_NPP.jpg  License:Public Domain  Contributors: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

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