Artemis 2 moon astronauts will try to recreate Apollo 8’s historic ‘Earthrise’ photo during April 6 flyby

The crew also aims to capture “Earthset” as our planet slips below the lunar horizon.

On Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of NASA’s Apollo 8 moon mission captured the “Earthrise” photograph, which is perhaps the most famous image ever taken from space. Soon, the astronauts of Artemis 2 will try to replicate it during their own flight around the moon.

Artemis 2 will perform its flyby around the moon‘s far side on Monday (April 6), more than 57 years after Apollo 8 became the first mission to take humans around the moon. During their lunar loop, the Artemis 2 astronauts will aim to recreate the Earthriseimage, in the hope that the new photo can have the same unifying effect that the original did.

Earthrise was more than simply a photograph. Its depiction of Earth‘s blue marble rising in the distance above the barren lunar surface illustrated how fragile our world really is amidst the vastness of space, and how, despite our differences, all of us share one planet.
Taken three years into the United States’ direct involvement in the Vietnam War, during an era in which environmental concerns were beginning to gain ground, Earthrise became the poster child for anti-war and pro-environment campaigners.

The photograph was unplanned and unexpected. Unlike Artemis 2, which will swing around the far side of the moon just once at an altitude that varies between about 4,000 and 6,000 miles (approximately 6,430 and 9,650 kilometers) without entering lunar orbit, the Apollo 8 spacecraft performed 10 orbits of the moon.

It was during the fourth orbit, as Apollo 8 emerged from the far side of the moon, that Lunar Module Pilot Bill Anders spotted something through the window.

“Oh my god, look at that picture over there!” he exclaimed, as recorded in the mission transcript. “There’s Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”

The crew of Artemis 2 — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — could also get a chance to see their own Earthrise, and this time imaging it is most definitely on the schedule.

In fact, they won’t just be going for Earthrise, but also “Earthset” — capturing Earth close to the lunar horizon just before it slips behind the limb of the moon as Artemis 2 begins its 45-minute journey around the far side. The astronauts will have just minutes, at best, to capture Earthrise and Earthset before our planet either gets too high in the sky or drops below the horizon, respectively.