To the untrained eye of this ignorant layman, all I see is blue water and cloud cover. But is it possible to identify which oceans, poles and landmasses we see in this famous moon shot picture of Earth?
I think the landmass on the left there might be Australia, which means the Earth looks “sideways” with its south pole to the left and north pole to the right. Nothing else to see but ocean (the Pacific, if my interpretation is right) and clouds. I think the clouds are obscuring Japan and other parts of eastern Asia. North America would be in shadow down there at the bottom.
Another vote for Australia. Think only the Pacific is big enough to account for all that blue.
The body of water has to be the Pacific, no other is that big. So the land mass has to be Australia. Any other land mass that size would straddle the equator. But from this angle very little if any of Asia or America (if it were lit) would be visible. No cloud cover needed to hide them.
The Earth’s axis is tilted. This photo was taken in July, so the south pole is lower from Apollo’s POV than the north’s and not lit by the sun. The Earth’s equator is at an angle going top left to bottom right. It doesn’t bisect the lit area.
The edge of Australia you can see is not the south west coast, it’s the north west coast. It has to be to be at that angle.
From this I have to conclude that the Moon at the time was not on the same plane as the Earth’s equator (it rarely is) but was actually to the south.
So most of what we can see in the photo is the southern Pacific.
You can totally see the Great Wall of China in that picture.
Yes, it looks like the north-west of Australia to me, centred on or around Broome. Perhaps 1920s Style “Death Ray” can confirm.
The first two pictures linked are different. How many shots were taken of ‘earthrise’? It looks like they were taken a few minutes apart. You can see the features on the moon have shifted, and the earth is higher in the sky in the second one.
As for features, I vote for: Australia, Pacific Ocean.
And the shadows are at different angles, too. I suspect a whistle-blower. :dubious:
You can find a complete sequence of nice, hi-res, cleaned-up images here. Click on “11-pg2” and search the page for “Earthrise”.
This page has 4, and I know some were taken on missions other than Apollo 11.
If you look at drewbert’s link under Apollo 8, it says they were the first to see an earthrise.
Compare those pictures against the earthrise picture from Apollo 11 and you will see something interesting. Both show Australia, but the apparent position of the hemispheres is reversed! In the Apollo 11 pictures, the southern hemisphere is on the left, while in the Apollo 8 pictures, the southern hemisphere is on the right! Either the film was reversed for one of the scans, or they were orbiting the moon in opposite directions (unlikely?). Another explanation?
No mystery. Apollo 8 shows Australia in the morning and in Apollo 11 it’s around the otherside in the afternoon. So side-on it has switched from left to right.
You also have reverse tilt because they were in December and July respectively.
No, that doesn’t explain it. In those pictures, the poles are on the right and left; look at the horizontal terminator between day and night. During diurnal rotation, Australia can only move from the top left (or right) to the bottom left (or right). It cannot move from left to right, or vice versa…
I don’t have a definitive answer to this, because I can’t tell the landmasses in the first place, but the picture might be “upside down”. One picture could be with the moon “above” the earth, the other with the moon “below” the earth. Of course, there’s no up and down in space, hence the quotation marks. Most people would habitually turn the picture to have the earth on top, cause it looks better that way. That would mean one is earthset, but that doesn’t really matter.
I superimposed, sized, and angled a map of Oceania. Looks like Australia to me, tilted about 69 degrees.
I would agree - in the first two pictures linked to that is Australia on the left…
I’m looking at the Appolo 8 pictures now… on the first Earth rising picture on that page dated Christmas Eve 1968 - I think the land mass you can see is Africa - - it’s in the middle - the top part is very deserty looking… it makes sense…
then in the second - right at the top would be South America
but then I would expect all the photos to be correct - - they were faked – nobody has been to the moon… (runs for cover)
