2015-12-24 Thu

It was Christmas Eve 1968, and the first lunar voyagers in history, the astronauts of Apollo 8; Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were emerging from behind the moon for the fourth time.

It was then that Anders first spotted it, the Earth, peeking over the horizon. And then the ‘earthrise over the moon’ was captured for the first time! First in black and white and then in colour the splendid beauty was captured. The colour picture captured by Anders became the best photo of the 20th century.

As their command module floated above the lunar surface, the astronauts beamed back images of the moon and Earth and took turns reading from the book of Genesis, closing with a wish for everyone "on the good Earth."

In 1969, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon. The stamp featured a colour photograph of the Earthrise, and the words, "In the beginning God...", recalling the reading of the first ten verses of the Genesis by the crew of Apollo 8.