Apollo 17 photographed the famous full-Earth image known as the “Blue Marble.”
The photograph was taken on 7 December 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew while traveling toward the Moon. The spacecraft was about 29,000 kilometres from Earth, and the Sun illuminated the planet almost fully from the crew's viewpoint. The image shows Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, Antarctica, and much of the surrounding cloud-covered ocean.
The photograph became one of the most widely reproduced images in history because it presented Earth as a single, fragile-looking sphere against the darkness of space. Astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt were aboard Apollo 17, although the precise photographer has often been debated because the crew shared the spacecraft's Hasselblad camera.
Apollo 8 also produced a famous Earth image, “Earthrise,” but that showed Earth rising above the lunar horizon from lunar orbit. The Blue Marble was captured during Apollo 17's outward journey and is associated with the mission's departure from Earth.