Though we all have differences, there’s one commonality that has prevailed for all of humanity: we are all floating on a rock, flying through outer space at over a million miles an hour.
Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology in the past century, we can observe much more of the universe than we ever thought possible.
The scale and sheer size of the universe make it impossible to truly learn everything, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Here's what's happening in space this week.
December 7 marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17, the NASA mission which brought humans to the moon for the last time. It’s also 50 years to the day since the Apollo 17 crew captured one of the most famous photographs in all of human history, 'The Blue Marble.'
'The Blue Marble' is only one of over 35,000 photos taken over the course of the Apollo missions. Many of the shots are now some of NASA's most iconic images and are easily recognizable worldwide.
British author and one of NASA's foremost experts in digital restoration, Andy Saunders, was fascinated by these images from the moment he saw them. However, he noticed something missing from the set of images.
"Something that would always frustrated me, being obsessed with the Apollo moon landings since I was a child - I wanted to see Neil Armstrong on the moon, and I couldn't because he held the camera,"
In 2019, Saunders restored an image of Neil Armstrong stepping foot on the moon. The photo made headlines after the world saw the face of the first man on the moon as they'd never seen before.
This led Saunders on a journey to restore crucial detail to thousands of images from NASA's Apollo missions.
"It just hit me that the most important photographs ever taken, are actually being seen in a progressively worse state by a progressively bigger audience. And it was that frustration really, that drove me to start the project," he said.
Now 50 years since the final lunar mission from NASA, Saunders says the book was made in an effort to educate as many people as he can about some of humanity's greatest achievements. Below are some of Saunder's remastered photos from the finale of NASA's lunar missions, Apollo 17.
"The Apollo missions are an important moment in human history ... one thing I want to do with the book is highlight those missions, there was more than just Apollo 11. And for me, yeah, it's just the most incredible human achievement. And I want people to see it, to learn about it."
After painstakingly working on the massive amount of photos for over 10,000 hours, Saunders chose 400 of the highest quality shots to use in his book, Apollo Remastered.
The book not only shows the photos with brand new detail, but also chronicles the Apollo missions with details under each image about who took the photo and what they were trying to convey with the capture. Check out some of the before and after shots below.
Tap here for the full interview with Andy Saunders.
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