This TED Talk features photographer Benjamin Grant recorded live at TEDx Scholl 2017.

It's Christmas Eve, 1968.

The Apollo 8 spacecraft has successfully completed its first three orbits around the moon.

Launched from Cape Canaveral three days before, this is the first time that humans have ever traveled beyond low Earth orbit. On the vessel's fourth pass,

the Earth slowly comes into view and reveals itself above the moon's horizon.

Astronaut Bill Anders frantically asks his crewmates where their camera is,

grabs the hassleblad, points it towards the window, presses the shutter,

and takes one of the most important photographs of all time. Earthrise.

When the crew was safely home a few days later, they were asked about the mission. Anders famously replied, we went to the moon, but we actually

discovered Earth. What did he and his fellow crewmates feel in this incredible moment? In a study released

just this past year, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania examined the

testimonies of hundreds of astronauts who had the opportunity to view the Earth from space.

Their analysis uncovered three common feelings.

First, a greater appreciation for Earth's beauty.

Second, an increased sense of connection to all other living beings.

And third, an unexpected, often overwhelming sense of emotion. The researchers

believe that seeing the earth from a great distance provokes someone to develop new cognitive

frameworks to understand what they are seeing. They believe these astronauts were forever changed

by this new view,

this new perspective, this new visual truth.

This feeling is commonly referred to as the overview effect.

Only 558 people have ever been to outer space.

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