#william anders

Earthrise by Astronaut William Anders - 1968

The astronaut who captured the famous first colour photo of the Earth from space has died in a plane crash in the US. William Anders, 90, was the only person aboard the small aircraft he was piloting when it plummeted off the coast of Jones Island, near Washington state, on Friday. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death, adding the family is "devastated". "He was a great pilot and we will miss him terribly," he added. Mr Anders circled the moon with Apollo 8 in December 1968, in the first human spaceflight to leave Earth's orbit.

RIP William Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic Earthrise photo in 1968.

Here's why I adore this photo, enormous cliché notwithstanding.

1) Oh this is a stupid gorgeous planet that we have. Look at it! Just look at it! This shot is close enough for earth to be immediately recognisable and breathtakingly beautiful, but not too close: it doesn't invite you to zoom in and worry about silly things like borders, it invites you to take a step back (well the camera took a step back for you!) and take it ALL in, with a different perspective – from a different celestial body, a whole other world.

2) It's not really an earthrise, though. There's no such thing as an earthrise from the moon, because it's gravitationally locked to the earth. So from our perspective it rises and sets, wanes and waxes, and we only ever see one side of it (the other one is famously dark), while from the moon's perspective the earth is either always visible, or (if you're on the dark side of the moon) never visible.

The "earthrise" effect came from the trajectory of the Apollo 8 mission: it circled around the moon, without landing, and as it was moving from above the dark side of the moon towards the light one, the earth slowly emerged into view, and appeared to "rise". This is essentially a trick photo – photography is the perfect medium for deceiving without actually lying. And what a deception!

So why does that matter? It matters because this picture is simultaneously a revelation and an illusion, thus combining the two cornerstones of science, and indeed of that basic stance of curiosity we need to maintain towards the world around us: DELIGHT and DOUBT. They don't sabotage each other, they're complementary!

So that's what Earthrise tells me: question everything, be inspired by everything. Also, we only have one home and we need to fucking share it, and not fucking destroy it. But perhaps that's better illustrated with the Pale Blue Dot and similar.