The 30 | Moon
Retrospectives and recaps featuring the most famous satellite will inundate your news feeds starting in 3... 2... 1... liftoff. I've been reading, watching, and listening to give you a jump on some scrumptious fun facts and historical threads you'll need to ace any moon-related conversations in the coming month.
The moon floats 239,000 miles from us. To give you some perspective, you'd cover about the same distance if you walked around the Earth's equator 10 times.
Instead, start with this gorgeous, emotional film about one of humanity's most famous pictures. Photo negative 68-H-1401 would become known as Earthrise.
"To me it was strange that we had worked and had come all the way to the moon to study the moon, and what we really discovered was the Earth," said Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, the man behind the camera.
But it was the Apollo 11 crew who landed on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. Newly accessible audio archives provide a witness to those achievements.
We live in an era when communities that lack words for "black holes" or "gravitational waves" now receive space news, and devices that fit in our pockets contain more computing power than the room-sized 1960s NASA terminals. We know more about the moon's origins and how that heavenly body affects animals on our planet.
Yet stories from the Space Race still captivate -- from Hidden Figures to historical framers -- despite our modern knowledge and contexts. Through its close proximity and methodical presence, the moon reminds us that we might not be alone, but we assuredly remain isolated in the vast darkness. Our neighbors down the street and across the world compose the entirety of the available community.
And the monthly slivers and circles, observable change, inspire people now as always before to simply pause and look up.