Moon Craters Named for 50th Anniversary of Apollo 8 & # 039; Earthrise & # 039;
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Moon Craters Named for 50th Anniversary of Apollo 8 & # 039; Earthrise & # 039;
Moon Craters Named for 50th Anniversary of Apollo 8 & # 039; Earthrise & # 039;
Two lunar craters visible in the photo of an Earth astronaut rising above the moon have been named in honor of the 50th anniversary of the historic mission that captured that iconic sight.
The working group for the nomenclature of planetary systems of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved "Anders' Earthrise" and "8 Homeward"As the new official names of the two craters. The working group is the internationally recognized authority responsible for assigning names to planetary features in our solar system.
On December 24, 1968, NASA astronaut William "Bill" Anders, along with your crewmates Apollo 8 Frank Borman and James Lovell, became the first humans to orbit the moon. When they emerged aboard the Apollo command module from the other side of the moon, they witnessed the rising Earth rise above the lunar surface for the first time.
Anders, equipped with a 70-millimeter color film camera, photographed the scene, which became known as "Earthrise". Subsequently, the image appeared on the cover of magazines, newspapers and books and was reproduced on a 1969 postmark in the United States.
"This is possibly the most famous photo taken by Apollo 8. It became iconic and is credited with the start of the environmental movement," declared the IAU.
"We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth," Anders said.
The so-called lunar craters "8 Homeward" and "Anders' Earthrise" honor the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission.
Credit: NASA / IAU
The crew of Apollo 8 completed 10 orbits of the moon before returning home to Earth on December 27, 1968.
"Anders' Earthrise", formerly designated "Pasteur T" for the large impact crater in which it is located, is 25 miles in diameter (40 kilometers). It is clearly visible in the foreground of Photograph of the Land of Anders, hence its newly assigned name.
"8 Homeward" is smaller, measures approximately 8 miles (12.5 km) and is seen on the horizon of the moon in the "Earthrise" photo. Originally designated as "Ganskiy M", "8 Homeward" aims to represent the safe return of the Apollo 8 astronauts.
The names were based in part on references from two books: "Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth" by Robert Poole (Yale University Press, 2010) and "Apollo 8: The exciting story of the first mission to the moon"by Jeffrey Kluger (Henry Holt and Company, 2017), according to the IAU.
"Anders' Earthrise" and "8 Homeward" are not the first craters on the moon named after or as a result of the Apollo 8 mission.
The other side of the moon, with labels, identifies the craters named by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) for the members of the crew of Apollo 1 and Apollo 8 in 1970.
Credit: NASA
In 1970, the IAU named three lunar craters after the three astronauts. "Borman", "Lovell" and "Anders" are located on the opposite side of the moon near three craters named after the fallen team of Apollo 1 that died tragically in a fire during a test on January 27, 1967 on the platform of launch.
The Apollo 8 astronauts also called on the IAU to formally recognize the names of the features they coined as reference points they identified during training and then viewed from the lunar orbit.
"If it has not been previously named or if it is not well recognized by a name, then it should be named by people who see it, who recognize it and who have things to do with it," Lovell said in A 2013 interview with collectSPACE .com.
Lovell was specifically referring to "monte marilyn"a triangular mountain that was used by the crews of Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 as a descent marker. Lovell named the name for his wife and for 49 years, the IAU refused to recognize him.
That changed on July 26, 2017, when the Working Group for the nomenclature of the planetary system Officially recognized "Monte Marilyn" along with two other feature names from the Apollo 11 landing site.
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