Earth's Album

The best picture the world has ever seen wasn't snapped by a professional photographer but by a man of science, the former U.S. astronaut William Anders. Taken in December 1968 from Apollo 8 — the first manned vehicle in lunar orbit — the image is of the earth rising above the moon's arid, lifeless horizon. Revealing the planet for the first time as a pristine blue and white jewel in the black void of space, the picture became an instant classic, inspiring poets and becoming a symbol of the ecology movement.

"It is truly the most beautiful...