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004:59 Apollo 17 crew
Cernan: "I know we're not the first to discover this - but we'd like to confirm, from the crew of America, that the world is round."
CapCom: "Roger. That's a good data point."
CapCom: "Have you gotten a good look at any of that weather down there on the Antarctic?"
Cernan: "Well, Ron's at window number 1 - maybe he can tell you a little about it."
Evans: "You know, it's real funny there in Antarctica - You can see the snow, but there isn't any weather at all in it. All of the weather's around it in the water."
Schmitt: "That's where the moisture is."
Schmitt?Evans? "I don't know what to take a picture of."
(Both Evans and Schmitt are looking at the Earth through their side windows. Schmitt takes a series of Earth photos (#110 AS17-148-22717 through #115 AS17-148-22722) with varying exposures, using the telephoto lens.
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Original NASA Caption, Saturday December 23, 1972:
View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the southern hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.
Earth is said to have the appearance of a child's marble in the photo; that is the Earth has the same aspect at this distance as a child's marble at about arm's length. NASA officially credits the image to the entire Apollo 17 crew . Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Jack Schmitt . all of whom took photographic images with the on-board Hasselblad. Schmitt later claimed that he personally took the famous image, but the identity of the photographer is unverifiable.
-- from Wikipedia entry for "The Blue Marble" as of March 22, 2006
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