Yes - the average Earth albedo (reflectiveness coefficient, more or less) is about 0.3 while the Moon is only about 0.12, and the Earth’s diameter is four times greater (so about 16x the area of the disc). So the Earth from the Moon is, phase for phase, far brighter than the Moon from the Earth. Also, there’s no lunar atmosphere to dim the Earth, though the stars would be correspondingly brighter.
But it’s not the Earth that’s the over-exposure problem a quarter million miles away - it’s the Moon lit up like a Sahara noon right at your feet.
I think you’re right that that is South America, the southern tip visible between 12:30 and 1:00. Knowing where to look from there, the Antarctic Peninsula is is also visible at about 11 O’clock. It’s not just clouds.
Wow. Those stars are so powerful, they can shine through the mass of the Earth!
(In case I am being too subtle: there appear to be stars directly below the illuminated hemisphere of Earth – where presumably there should be only blackness, since the rest of the plant is there, unlit.)
ETA: not the first to make this observation, I see.
That picture was taken right about at the winter solstice, so the South Pole would be well into the lit portion of the Earth, and the North Pole would be well into the unlit side. Based on that, I’d have to say that it’s Antarctica on the upper left, which corresponds to what ZenBeam and wolfstu are saying.
OK, I just fired up Google Earth and got the same perspective as in the photo. The South Pole is at the upper left. The land mass visible at the lower left is the western shore of southern Africa. The land mass at the lower right is far west Africa. South America should be well-visible towards the upper right, but it’s obscured by clouds. The place on the ocean where you see sunlight reflecting is really close to the east edge of Brazil. The southern tip of South America would be way over, at about 11:00 in the photo.
Prior to that, the Earth was usually shown cloudless, and often with clouds extending into space. People who were acquainted with science (and science fiction) knew better – look at Destination Moon, or Chesley Bonestell paintings, or a lot of SF magazine art. But in moost popular depictions there are no clouds at all – even in SF movies until the early 1960s (think Tbhis Island Earth or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, or even the Heinlein-scripted Operation Moonbase)
I don’t think it’s because people were stupid – by the 1960s you could see daily weather photos from satellites on the nightly news. But I suspect movie-makers were afraid people wouldn’t recognize the earth unless it looked globe-like, sans clouds.
The Apollo photos changed that, especially the “Earthrise” photos.
I already said that you had clouds in Chesley Bontell paintings and Destination Moon from the 1950s. Heck, you arguably had clouds over the earth in the Rite of Spring sequence in Fantasia from 1940.
The thing is, these were the exceptions, by people who knew the truth and weren’t fazed by thoughts of confusing the audience. By far the bulk of shots of the earth showed it cloudless, or with “Space Clouds”, as in the 1936 film the Invisible Ray or The Flying House or even in Star Trek’s "Miri.
But ever since those pictures – made famous on magazine covers, wall posters, and the like, the standard view of earth from space now requires clouds. (Except for the Universal logo – that remains steadfastly cloud-free, for some reason)
Even worse, considering how iconic and overall good the fil m is, consider the 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still. If you watch the credits sequence, as you approach the earth, mot only is the earth apparently cloud-free, but you pass through clouds going from the Moon to the Earth. They’re superimposed on the film shot that closes on on the Earth from the Moon, and it’s clear that you’re supposed to be passing through clouds.
What makes it worse is that, as the shot (clearly supposed to be Klaatu’s ship"s Point of View) comes in close to mthe earth, it passes through real shots of clouds. So where were those in the long shots?
Clouds …gotta love 'em …sometimes I think that they look like rows and flows of angel hair …other times, don’t they just look like ice-cream castles in the air ?
But realistically, at the end of the day, they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone …
And I have to admit that, never having studies meteorology, I’m not sufficiently familiar with what causes the various types of clouds or under what conditions they’ll produce rain, or snow, or sleet. I have to admit that I really don’t know clouds at all.
