A photo taken in 1968 by astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 sparked the first-ever Earth Day. As I watched the Artemis II send back iconic photos of the blue planet more than 50 years later, I couldn’t help but think of the role that photography is playing in sparking both awe and respect for our planet.
The camera allows humans who never leave the Earth's atmosphere to view our planet in its entirety – and the impact has not been small. The iconic Earthrise from 1968 inspired the first Earth Day in 1970. Two years later, Apollo 17 astronauts would take what’s widely known as the first ever clear color photo of Earth in its entirety to be taken by a human, an infamous photo known as the Blue Marble.
