December 24, 2012

Earthrise - 24 December 1968


The rising Earth is about five degrees above the lunar horizon in this telephoto view taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft near 110 degrees east longitude. The horizon, about 570 kilometers (350 statute miles) from the spacecraft, is near the eastern limb of the moon as viewed from Earth. Width of the view at the horizon is about 150 kilometers (95 statute miles). On Earth 240,000 statute miles away the sunset terminator crosses Africa. The crew took the photo around 10:40 a.m. Houston time on the morning of December 24, and that would make it 15:40 GMT on the same day. The South Pole is in the white area near the left end of the terminator. North and South America are under the clouds.

Image Credit: NASA
Explanation from: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo8/html/as08-14-2383.html

3 comments:

  1. U think the earth would look bigger concidering its looks the same size as the moon from earth

    ReplyDelete
  2. where are the stars, and sun ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The nearest star, actually three stars, is the Alpha Centauri system, about 4.3 light years away. Our sun is 93 million miles from the earth. A light year is the distance that light travels in a year at the speed of light, the top velocity in the universe, 186,000 miles per second. By comparison, the top speed of the Saturn rockets that launched US astronauts towards the moon, was about 25,000 miles per hour, which works out to about 7 miles per second. Don't ask me for a source. I read most of this years ago and worked out some of them on my own.

      Delete