Apollo v Artemis: How the Earth changed in 58 years - BBC

When the commander of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, first saw the far side of the Moon from his spacecraft window in 1968 he was struck by its desolate 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."

But as the spacecraft completed its fourth lunar orbit, suddenly, a very different view appeared.

"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 Earthrise picture, as it was soon named, became one of the most reproduced images of all time. Showing our planet in the context of the lunar wasteland and vast oblivion of space, it galvanised the environmental movement, leading to the creation of Earth Day in 1970. (Read more about the 1968 photo that changed the world ).

Fifty-eight years later, Nasa astronauts have taken another striking photo of the Earth dipping below a barren lunar landscape: "Earthset". During their fly-by of the Moon earlier this month, the Artemis II crew captured the new image of our fragile blue planet in the vast expanse of space. (We don't know who took the picture this time because the four astronauts have chosen not to credit photos to individuals but to the whole crew).

In geological terms, just over half a century is barely the shadow of a blink of an eye. But climate change has altered the Earth's surface significantly over the past six decades. Experts tell the BBC about the visible differences between the Earthrise and Earthset photos and what these tell us about our planet then and now.

Despite its impact and legacy, what's so surprising about the Earthrise picture is that no one at Nasa had seen it coming. "They caught it by accident, right?" says US astronaut Sian Proctor, the pilot for the first wholly "civilian" mission to space (named 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 I asked a question at the press conference following the Artemis launch about plans for a new Earthrise picture, it was clear that, this time, Nasa was not going to be caught out.

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

The Earthset photo was captured through the Orion spacecraft window 18:41 Eastern Daylight Time (23:41BST) on 6 April, during a seven-hour flyby of the Moon.

"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 notes in its description of the image.

Unlike in 1968, numerous satellites take thousands of images of our planet each day in 2026. They measure and monitor our oceans, land and ice in all shades of the electromagnetic spectrum – from microwave to ultraviolet – not just what we can see with our eyes. There is a continuous video feed from the International Space Station and robotic spacecraft have even captured the Earth from the vantage point of the Moon and beyond, but the fact that Earthset was taken by humans sets it apart.

Craig Donlon, who oversees the plans for the next generation of satellites at the European Space Agency (Esa), says humans give us a different perspective.

"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.'"

But it's not just the human connection that makes the Earthrise and Earthset images significant. Despite being snapshots taken some 58 years apart, they can also help reveal how the Earth has changed in that time.