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1969
The photograph was taken about 5 hours and 6 minutes after launch of the Apollo 17 mission, and about 1 hour 54 minutes after the spacecraft left its parking orbit around the Earth, to begin its trajectory to the Moon. -
After the launch
The time of Apollo 17's launch, 12:33 a.m. EST, meant that Africa was in daylight during the early hours of the spacecraft's flight. With the December solstice approaching, Antarctica was also illuminated. -
Last mission
Apollo 17 was the last manned lunar mission. -
Blue Marble
The Blue Marble was the first clear image taken of an illuminated face of the Earth. Released during a surge in environmental activism during the 1970s -
Farthest they been
No one has been far enough from the Earth since then where a photographer could record a whole-Earth image such as The Blue Marble, but the whole planet has been photographed by many unmanned spacecraft missions since 1972. -
Landing
Landed on moon on December 11, 1972 -
CM Lunar
The CM left lunar orbit on December 16 and returned to Earth on
December 19, 1972. -
The satellite imaging series
In 2002, NASA released an extensive set of satellite-captured imagery, including prepared images suitable for direct human viewing, as well as complete sets suitable for use in preparing further works. -
Blue Marble Next Generation
A subsequent release was made in 2005, named Blue Marble Next Generation,[10] produced with the aid of automated image-sifting, which enabled the inclusion of a complete, cloud-free globe 'frozen in time' for each month of the year, at even higher resolution (500m/pixel). -
NPP Satellite
The picture is composed of data obtained by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument[15] on-board the Suomi NPP satellite on 4 January 2012 -
Blue Marble 2012
On January 25, 2012, NASA released a composite image of the western hemisphere of Earth entitled Blue Marble 2012. The picture was widely viewed, logging over 3.1 million views on the Flickr image hosting website within the first week of release. -
Eastern Hemisphere
On 2 February 2012, NASA released a companion to this new Blue Marble, showing a composite image of the eastern hemisphere from data obtained on 23 January 2012