The Iconic ‘Blue Marble’ Photo: How 50 Years of Climate Change Have Altered It

In December 1972, NASA’s final Apollo mission (Apollo 17) took the iconic 'Blue Marble' photo of the whole Earth. In an instant, everyone on earth Earth could see our planet as it really is: one unified environment, encompassing all life on earth. If has since become a symbol of Earth's unique and solitary position in space and the global environmental movement.

But that portrait is now a historical artifact. Fifty years later, on December 8 2022, NASA took a new image of Earth from its Deep Space Climate Observatory, positioned approximately 1.5 million kilometers (932,057 miles) away. The new photo reveals clear changes to the face of the Earth, including clear impacts of climate change.

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How 50 years of climate change has changed the face of the 'Blue Marble' from space - This BBC article explores how the iconic original Blue Marble photo was taken, and then examines both how the new photo came to be and what it reveals about the effects of climate change over the intervening 50 years.