One of the most beautiful photographs ever taken of the Earth.
“Wave of clouds along the east flanks of the Andes Mountains cast off an orange glow by the low angle of the Sun in the west. The dark area to the left is at Earth’s terminator. The intermontane salt basins are visible in the background” (original NASA caption for the photograph).
This photograph was taken with a modified 70mm Hasselblad 500C camera and the 80mm lens, with Eastman Kodak, Ektachrome MS (SO 217) color film.
“This majestic roof, fretted with golden fire lay below Gemini Vll as it crossed South America. The low angle of the setting Sun produced this unusual glow of clouds along the Andes Mountains,” said Leroy Day, Apollo Program Test Director. “This picture looks south from northern Bolivia across the Andes Mountains, and illustrates the extensive cloud cover seen in that area. The Gemini Vll mission produced a wealth of medical, scientific, and operational data which clearly established man’s ability to work usefully during a 2-week space flight and return to Earth in good health” (Cortright, p. 167).