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The White House
A New Blue
Marble
From President Obama: Just got this new blue marble photo from NASA. A
beautiful reminder that we need to protect the only planet we have…
Earth.
Not mounted on a stand, with color-coded state and national boundaries,
as schoolroom globes are prone to display. Instead, we see our world as
only a cosmic perspective can provide: blue oceans, dry land, white
clouds, polar ice. A sun-lit planet, teeming with life, framed in
darkness.
In 1972, when NASA's Apollo 17 astronauts first captured an entire
hemisphere of our planet, we were treated to such a view. The Blue
Marble, it was called. The Space Program's unprecedented images of
Earth compelled us all to think deeply about our dependence on nature
and the fate of our civilization.
Of course, at the time, we had other distractions. Between 1968 and
1972, the United States would experience some of its most turbulent
years in memory, simultaneously enduring a hot war in Southeast Asia, a
Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Civil Rights Movement, campus
unrest, and assassinations. Yet that's precisely when we voyaged to the
Moon, paused, looked back, and discovered Earth for the first time.
The year 1970 would celebrate the first Earth Day. In that same year,
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were formed with strong bipartisan
support. In 1972, the pesticide DDT was banned and the Clean Water Act
was passed. And one year later, the Endangered Species Act would be
enacted, the catalytic converter would be introduced, and unleaded
automotive emission standards would be set. A stunning admission that
we're all in this together, with a common future on a shared planet.
Regrettably, we still live in a turbulent world. But we now have at our
disposal, not simply a photograph of our home to reflect upon, but
continual data of our rotating planet, captured 13 times per day, by
the robotic Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a specially
designed space camera and telescope, launched and positioned a million
miles from Earth.
We will now be able to measure and track sun-induced space weather as
well as global climatic trends in ozone levels, aerosols, vegetation,
volcanic ash, and Earth reflectivity, all in high resolution -- just
the kind of data our civilization needs to make informed cultural,
political, and scientific decisions that affect our future.
Occasions such as this offer renewed confidence that we may ultimately
become responsible shepherds of our own fate, and the fate of that
fragile home we call Earth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
American Museum of Natural History, New York City
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