Who took the most iconic photo of the Earth taken from space?

Exactly 50 years ago on December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders successfully made the journey to the Moon. Although the mission is about to be forgotten, the photo taken during this mission showing the view of the Earth from the Moon is still remembered.

Until that photograph, the Earth's surface had not yet been viewed from that far away. Famous wildlife photographer Galen Rowell commented on the photograph, which was included in the album "100 Photos That Changed the World" prepared by Life Magazine, with the sentence "The most impressive environmental photograph ever taken."

Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. These three astronauts—Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to witness and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.

The photograph, which was used in many magazines and newspapers in 1969, was also on the cover of Time Magazine. It is also quite thought-provoking that the most important photograph taken by the team assigned to examine the lunar surface shows the Earth.

Robert Zimmerman, author of the book The Story of Apollo 8, includes the following statements in his book about this mission: "NASA had determined all the missions before sending Apollo 8 into space. But no one had thought of taking a photo of the Earth from the Moon." These statements of Robert Zimmerman show how valuable the photograph taken is.

The famous photo was taken during the 4th rotation around the Moon. The orbit of the spacecraft changed at the moment the photo was taken, and the astronauts who saw this view at that moment achieved great success by photographing the Earth.

Until that moment when the orbit changed, no astronaut, including the man responsible for the photography, William Anders, had been prepared to take such a photo. The astronauts who decided to take a photo in that short moment brought this famous photo to space history.