From earthrise to earthset: How 58 years of change reshaped our planet

After the Apollo 8 crew captured the iconic Earthrise photograph in 1968, astronauts on the Artemis mission have recreated a similar image, revealing how our fragile blue planet has changed.

When Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman first viewed the Moon's far side from his spacecraft window in 1968, he was struck by its stark, lifeless appearance.

"The lunar surface was terribly distressed with meteorite craters and volcanic residue," he told me during a BBC interview in 2018. "It was either grey or black or white – there was absolutely no colour on the lunar surface, and it was messed up beyond belief."

However, as the spacecraft completed its fourth orbit of the Moon, a dramatically different scene came into view.

"We looked up and there was the Earth in the background coming over the lunar surface, and Bill Anders took the picture that became probably one of the more significant pictures that humans have ever taken," Borman said.

"The Earth was the only thing in the entire Universe that had any colour, it was a remarkable sight – we're very, very fortunate to live on this planet."

This image, later known as Earthrise, became one of the most widely reproduced photographs in history.

By placing Earth against the stark lunar landscape and the vast emptiness of space, it helped ignite the environmental movement and contributed to the creation of Earth Day in 1970.

Fifty-eight years later, Nasa astronauts have captured another striking image—this time of Earth descending below the Moon's barren horizon, dubbed "Earthset."

During a recent flyby earlier this month, the Artemis II crew photographed the planet suspended in the vastness of space.

The exact photographer remains unknown, as the four astronauts chose to credit the image to the entire crew.

In geological terms, a little over half a century is barely an instant.

Yet over these decades, climate change has significantly altered Earth's surface.

Experts point to visible differences between the Earthrise and Earthset images that reflect these changes.

Despite its lasting impact, what's remarkable about the original Earthrise photo is that it was unplanned.

"They caught it by accident, right?" says US astronaut Sian Proctor, pilot of the first all-civilian space mission, Inspiration. "Apollo 8 changed the way we saw our planet and that's the kind of thing I feel like we need right now, more inspiration."

When asked at a press conference following the Artemis launch about plans to capture a new Earthrise image, Nasa made clear it would not leave things to chance this time.

"We're going to do everything we can to try and make that happen," said Lori Glaze, head of the agency's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.

The Earthset image was taken through the Orion spacecraft window at 18:41 Eastern Daylight Time (23:41 BST) on 6 April during a seven-hour lunar flyby.

"The Earth's sunlit side shows white clouds and blue water over the Oceania region, while the dark areas are experiencing nighttime. The image also shows incredible detail of the Moon's surface and its overlapping craters and basins," Nasa noted.

Unlike in 1968, when such images were rare, satellites now capture thousands of images of Earth every day. They monitor the planet across the electromagnetic spectrum, from microwave to ultraviolet. There is even a continuous video feed from the International Space Station, and robotic spacecraft have photographed Earth from the Moon and beyond. Still, the fact that Earthset was captured by humans gives it a unique emotional resonance.

Craig Donlon, who leads next-generation satellite planning at the European Space Agency, says human perspectives add something special.

"The images that you get from a human are framed, focused, and there are choices that are made subconsciously and consciously by the astronaut when they press the shutter, they've got something in the back of their mind," Donlon says. "That forces some kind of emotion, which says, 'Well, wow, okay, little old Earth there, but that's where we live, that's it, that's everything.'"

Beyond their emotional impact, the Earthrise and Earthset images also offer insight into how Earth has changed over nearly six decades.

"Since Earthrise, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen by about a third and global temperatures have warmed rapidly, by at least 1C," says Richard Allan, a climate science professor at the University of Reading.

"The planet has transformed as human activities alter the texture of our land as seen from space, expanding cities, clearing dark forests for replacement by bright agricultural lands and contributing to the desiccation of the Aral Sea which has shrunk to less than 10% of its 1960s size."

Although the two images show different parts of the planet, both include Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

"The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth and 28,000km of ice shelf have collapsed in between the original image and the latest image," says Benjamin Wallis, a glaciologist at the University of Leeds.

Research suggests that these changes in Antarctic ice are unprecedented over the past 10,000 years. Other frozen regions of the planet-the cryosphere have also experienced significant shifts.

"We really have seen some dramatic changes," says Petra Heil of the British Antarctic Survey. 

"We have now seen in both hemispheres a dramatic decrease in the seasonal sea ice cover, and in North America, Eurasia and Asia, we have seen much later seasonal snow cover, and we also see it melting earlier."

"I think we are pretty confident based on the observations but also the numerical models to assign probably 90-95% of the change to human activities," Heil adds.

While these findings are concerning, it's important to remember that environmental damage was already evident in 1968, even if it wasn't visible from space.

"Earthrise left many people enthralled with the idea of how beautiful the Earth was and how much damage was being done," says Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network.

"I remember at the time you couldn't see across the street in LA at rush hour because of smog and our rivers were on fire."

"From so far away, the Earth looks so perfect and so beautiful and then as you drew closer, you could see the ravages of 150 years of, let's call it, progress," she says.

"But it did inspire a generation of people to really step it up and become part of a movement."

Borman passed away in 2023, but the legacy of Apollo 8 continues to resonate. His words remain as powerful today as they were then:

"I don't think any of us have paid any attention to the fact that we would be going all the way to the Moon and be more interested in looking at the Earth."