A Question of Perspective

In 1948, Sir Frederick Hoyle, the physicist-cosmologist who coined the term ‘the big bang’, predicted that once the earth was photographed, its image would unleash “a new idea as powerful as any in history.” Twenty years later, during their extraordinary flight to the moon and back, the crew of Apollo 8 took that very first snapshot. Only now are we beginning to grasp the full import of this powerful ‘new idea’. With it, we truly see ourselves – that is humanity and life entire – in a global context. As Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders said: "We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth."