There are multiple reasons. The image is iconic, famous and is one of the few true photographic images of Earth. It has also been a featured image since November 2004. Other images may present more detail of the land masses, but they are generally composite or processed images. For some previous discussions see (1234567).
Q.
Why does the article not have mostly harmless as its short description or otherwise summarize the article's content using it?
A.
This has been discussed several times including (12345). The consensus is that it fails WP:42.
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Astronomy, which collaborates on articles related to Astronomy on Wikipedia.AstronomyWikipedia:WikiProject AstronomyTemplate:WikiProject AstronomyAstronomy
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Geography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of geography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GeographyWikipedia:WikiProject GeographyTemplate:WikiProject Geographygeography
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Geology, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use geology resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.GeologyWikipedia:WikiProject GeologyTemplate:WikiProject GeologyGeology
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Science on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject ScienceTemplate:WikiProject Sciencescience
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CultureWikipedia:WikiProject CultureTemplate:WikiProject Cultureculture
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles that are spoken on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Spoken WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaSpoken Wikipedia
Complaints about the lack of young Earth creationism or similar points of view are inappropriate content for this talk page. For an overview of Wikipedia's position on creationism or young Earth-related topics, please see the FAQ at Talk:Evolution.
This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto the all-time Top 100 list. It has had 76 million views since December 2007.
Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In the whole "Natural History" section there are four artist's impressions. The "After formation" section is illustrated by the "orange dot", a speculative view of how the Earth looked in the Archaean. There is already another artist's impression of the Archaean in the "Origin of life and evolution" section. There used to be an image there of actual rocks that displayed just some of the evidence used by geologists to disentangle Earth's history, shown here,
Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments4 people in discussion
The lead currently says "Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world..." The transition between the two sentences flows nicely, but it implies that we know that life can only exist on an ocean world. I think this misstates the current scientific understanding of this subject. T g7 (talk) 04:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Rather, I would say that it implies we only know for certain that life can exist on an ocean world, which certainly is the case. Remsense ‥ 论04:43, 4 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ignoring the obvious difference that trees are alive, the other obvious difference is people have noticed how life on Earth was likely made possible by its oceans. Remsense ‥ 论03:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that life on Earth is made possible by the presence of water, instead of saying that it is made possible because of the presence of oceans? T g7 (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
To that, add, 'presence of *liquid water*' (unless you believe extremophiles could evolve on a steam-world). Beyond that, an excess of water relative to landmass is the condition that likely results in oceans. Given a lot lower water/land ratio, I don't see anything to prevent formation of a 'Minnesota planet', with minor land elevation differences, and studded with ponds and streams everywhere; or a mostly waterlogged, 'Bayou planet', covered with trees or vegetation almost everywhere, soaking in variable amounts of water, maybe some flattish continents here and there, but nowhere having enough water for the runoff to pool into oceans. Don't see why life couldn't arise in either of those situations: plenty of water, no oceans. Mathglot (talk) 01:39, 6 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
(@WhatisMars, would you mind specifically tagging the photos as A and B for convenience?)
I'll repeat my previous position briefly. To my knowledge, photo B is the most recognizable rendering of The Blue Marble, one of the most famous photographs in human history, by a significant margin. In my mind, this overrides our ordinary guideline to use a true color photograph as the primary image in the article lead for astronomical objects. Given the particularity of the photograph, in my mind the color correcting process used to create photo A strays uncomfortably close to original research; while the process is generally considered merely technical, the fact that The Blue Marble is a subject of discussion in its own right means to me that we should only reproduce versions of it previously published in reliable sources. Remsense ‥ 论19:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I've added image C, and prefer it due to the lesser amount of cloud cover, leading to more recognizable continents at the scale likely to be used in the Infobox. Mathglot (talk) 20:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
(Tangential and unsure at present if I would prefer it in lead position, but wow that photograph is particularly gorgeous.) Remsense ‥ 论20:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
B (invited by the bot) It's more authentic and also has better differentiation. BTW, as someone with background in the field, arguing that a particular versions is "what they actually saw" is not a sound argument. North8000 (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
C (Following WP:RFC/SCI) I don't think being the most recognizable photo of earth necessarily makes B the most representative photo of Earth, though it would certainly be the lead image in some future Images of Earth article. C is more recent, shows more surface area vs cloud cover, and includes a far higher percentage of Earth's human population. Safrolic (talk) 21:20, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
A. For the following reasons:
That B is the "default", culturally significant version of The Blue Marble is irrelevant. What matters here is representing the object as closely as possible to what it actually looks like. I am aware that there is no such thing as a "true" photograph, but if A is arguably closer to what a human observer would experience than B, then A must be the preferred choice.
That said, A has the advantage over C of being a version of a culturally significant image; this is not a great advantage IMHO but it could flip the choice towards it.
The real problem of C is that it is somehow less representative. There is more sea than land on Earth, and A/B show this somehow better than C. Also Earth has a significant cloud cover; picking an image of Earth with low cloud cover in temperate regions could be misleading. All images show both tropical and polar regions, but A/B shows much better the polar ice cap of Antarctica, hinting better at the diversity of climates on Earth.
B>C>A - But don't we really need an image that just shows America? I mean, that's the only place that really matters, right? NickCT (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I continue to be troubled by this argument being acceptable—keeping in mind a claim we are making here whether we find it important or not is "this is the representative version of The Blue Marble", one that is not verifiable in any reliable source—for claims made with images when it surely would not be for claims made with prose. Remsense ‥ 论03:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
To my understanding, we are discussing which image best represents Earth and is to be used as the leading image in its article, not which image best represents The Blue Marble. We should thus use an image which most accurately represents Earth, and A is the best option by far. AstroChara (talk) 00:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think C is the better picture, in regard of recency, quality, and the orientation including more land while retaining a diverse cloud cover (also, it might be considered irrelevant but I think the fact that the blue marble picture has its own article is an argument for having a different one on this article). Choucas Bleutalkcontribs15:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
A. As per cyclopia. Cultural significance is irrelevant when it comes to representing a celestial body, and in some cases it can also perpetuate misinformation, which I believe is something we want to avoid on Wikipedia.
B or C. I agree with User:Remsense. I will explain why I think version A should not be used.
Version B is the original "Blue Marble" photo. We are told that Version A was "color corrected." It is implied that state-of-the-art techniques were used on a decades-old photo to balance out the colors to provide an accurate version of the photo. This, it is implied, is what the Earth really looks like, to objective observers-- it is the natural appearance of the Earth.
The Wikipedia article on color correction is titled Color balance. Anyone who has played with the color sliders on a camera app on a phone knows that color correction can be a subjective process. Someone makes the decisions on how to do the color correction. Software is used, and different software may correct colors in different ways. What software was used on this photo of the Earth? What settings were used within the software? I am not saying we need to know the answers to these questions in order to include a photo on Wikipedia. Rather, I am pointing out that this color-corrected photo was produced by a person or people who made decisions about how to correct the colors. This color-corrected photo, to my knowledge, has not been vetted or approved by any outside organization. As such, this is likely WP:Original Research and, therefore, not appropriate for this article. As Remsense correctly pointed out, had NASA (or some other authoritative source) approved this color-corrected photo, we would be having a different conversation. But my understanding is that NASA did not approve it. So I think photo A should not be used. What do you think? T g7 (talk) 14:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
That is a facially untenable interpretation of what that policy says. Insofar as images make claims analogous to those made by prose, those claims are required to verifiable, even if editors historically are not as interested or sensitive in applying that standard. In fact, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments is right there in the passage you linked—and my entire point has been that using the color corrected version does in fact constitute an unverifiable claim in this case. Remsense ‥ 论17:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
B, the present page image, which shows land, sea, and clouds. Earth is not just land area, and 'B' highlights the various components and weather systems. 'A' is too manipulated (per above and its upload page), and 'C' would be better used on the Desertification page (decade by decade the land areas of Earth are becoming desert, this photo shows it well). Randy Kryn (talk) 09:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I was about to amend my !vote to indicate a secondary preference, but you raise a good point that the framing chosen by C to maximize the amount of land visible is actually problematic, not advantageous here. Remsense ‥ 论23:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
A or B. As said before, either A or B show more of the planet's variation. It also shows Antarctica which I think is quite important. I don't know what it is but C has a white spot on the centre which looks weird to me. ―Panamitsu(talk)23:39, 14 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
I am writing to request the opportunity to contribute to Wikipedia as an editor. I believe that my knowledge and expertise would allow me to make meaningful contributions to the platform, ensuring the accuracy and quality of the information available.
I have been an active user of Wikipedia for a long time, and I have spent considerable time reviewing existing articles, learning the guidelines, and understanding the standards that maintain the integrity of the platform. As a passionate advocate for learning new information , I would like to offer my assistance in improving existing articles, adding verifiable sources, and ensuring that the information presented is up-to-date and factually accurate.
I understand that Wikipedia’s success relies on the collective effort of its volunteer editors and the strict adherence to its guidelines, including neutrality, verifiability, and no original research. I am fully committed to these principles and am eager to participate in maintaining Wikipedia as a reliable and trusted source of knowledge.
I would greatly appreciate your consideration in granting me editing access, and I am happy to comply with any additional steps or requirements that would allow me to contribute effectively and responsibly to the platform.
Latest comment: 17 hours ago1 comment1 person in discussion
↑ N↑ N
← W
E →
S ↓S ↓
00
Lately I've been trying to experiment with different forms of interactivity. I made this rotatable earth viewer which has buttons to view the earth from different orientations. I'm not sure if this would be useful in the article. The section on rotation already has an animated GIF that gets the idea across better, and the blue marble image seems much better for the infobox. So it doesn't really seem like it would fit anywhere. However, i thought I'd mention it here in case anyone has a use for it or ideas on where something like this would be useful. Bawolff (talk) 01:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
level-1 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale..jpg?lang=en){kind=small}
Not done: See WP:TRIVIA RudolfRed (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
A: Color-calibrated picture (view in article)
B: NASA picture
C: 2018 NASA image.jpg?lang=en)
