February 5, 2021
The oldest light in the universe still hums faintly through space, a relic of the beginning itself.
Apollo 14 Heads for Home
Birthday · February 5, 2021
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published February 5, 2021. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Fifty years ago this Sunday (February 7, 1971), the crew of Apollo 14 left lunar orbit and headed for home. They watched this Earthrise from their command module Kitty Hawk. With Earth's sunlit crescent just peeking over the lunar horizon, the cratered terrain in the foreground is along the lunar farside. Of course, while orbiting the Moon, the crew could watch Earth rise and set, but from the lunar surface the Earth hung stationary in the sky over their landing site at Fra Mauro Base. Rock samples returned from Fra Mauro included a 20 pound rock nicknamed Big Bertha, determined to contain a likely fragment of a meteorite from planet Earth. Kept on board the Kitty Hawk during the Apollo 14 mission was a cannister of 400-500 seeds that were later grown into Moon Trees.