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[Apollo 8] PLANET EARTH AT MID-DISTANCE DURING HUMANITY'S FIRST RETURN JOURNEY FROM ANOTHER WORLD William Anders, Frank Borman, or James Lovell, December 21-27, 1968 image 1
[Apollo 8] PLANET EARTH AT MID-DISTANCE DURING HUMANITY'S FIRST RETURN JOURNEY FROM ANOTHER WORLD William Anders, Frank Borman, or James Lovell, December 21-27, 1968 image 2
Lot 182

[Apollo 8] PLANET EARTH AT MID-DISTANCE DURING HUMANITY'S FIRST RETURN JOURNEY FROM ANOTHER WORLD
William Anders, Frank Borman, or James Lovell, December 21-27, 1968

14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue Hoche

€1,200 - €1,800

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[Apollo 8] PLANET EARTH AT MID-DISTANCE DURING HUMANITY'S FIRST RETURN JOURNEY FROM ANOTHER WORLD

William Anders, Frank Borman, or James Lovell, December 21-27, 1968

Printed 1968.

Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA AS8-15-2575].
Numbered "NASA AS8-15-2575" in red in the top margin, with "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).

20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)

Historical context
This extraordinary photograph of our home planet, floating in the vastness of space midway between Earth and the Moon during humanity's first return journey from another world, underscores its beauty—the kind of image that forever changed humanity's perception of its place in the universe. Returning to that bright blue Earth from the Moon meant traversing 205,000 nautical miles of space.
"The Earth [...] captured my attention. It was the only object in the universe that we could see that had colour. It was beautiful, blue with white clouds, serene and majestic. It was home."

—Frank Borman (Jacobs, p. 34)

"Photography brought home the real meaning of our space activity, a grasp of what we can accomplish, and a view of the Earth as it really is: a small planet in a common type of planetary system around a rather normal, nondescript star."
—James Lovell (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 54)

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