Apollo 11 launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on July 16, 1961, on an eight-day mission to the Moon and back.
During these eight days in space, NASA’s astronauts kept an open line of communication with NASA’s mission control in Houston Texas.
All of these communication logs were recorded, stored and digitised by NASA for analysis today.
Thanks to NASA’s effort, diving into the space agency’s archive of Apollo 11 tapes can shed a light on the behind-the-scenes of the mission.
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NASA Moon landing: Buzz Aldrin saw a large shadow passing over the Earth from space (Image: NASA)
One moment, in particular, stands out on the third day of space flight when Buzz Aldrin looked outside of the Command Module spacecraft at the rapidly shrinking Earth behind him.
As the astronaut looked out over the entire continent of Africa, Europe and the Middle East, something caught his attention near the border of Pakistan and India.
The astronaut then patched into Houston, Texas, to report a “shadow” passing over the globe.
He said: “Houston, Apollo 11. We’ve got the continent of Africa right facing toward us right now, and of course, everything’s getting smaller and smaller as time goes on.
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“The Mediterranean is completely clear. The Sun looks like it’s about to set around Madagascar.
“The equatorial belt of Africa stands out quite clearly. We’re seeing a dark green or a muddy coloured green, compared to the sandier colours of the southern tip of Africa and, of course, the Sahara northern coast of Africa.
“There’s a rather remarkable cloud that appears in the vicinity of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“It’s just about to go into the sunset now. It is casting quite a large shadow. It’s isolated.
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“There don’t seem to be any other clouds. The band of clouds near the tropical convergent clouds down around the equator clearly separate the clockwise and the counter-clockwise cloud formations. Over.”
It is casting quite a large shadow. It’s isolated
Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot
According to Aldrin, the shadow cast by the unusual cloud was roughly the size of the Persian Gulf.
Astronaut Bruce McCandless who was communicating with Apollo 11 replied: “Okay. We copy the width of the Persian Gulf, and I guess that all I can give you first hand is a single isolated data point, and that is that it was clear here in Houston this morning. That’s a pretty localised observation.”
Aldrin then concluded the cloud was a “single-cell” thunderstorm brewing up to 50,000ft up in the sky.
NASA Moon landing: The shadow was being cast by a massive thunderstorm cloud (Image: NASA)
NASA Moon landing: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to walk on the Moon (Image: NASA)
He said: “The eastern Mediterranean is phenomenally clear. You can see all the lakes; the Dead Sea stood out quite well. Over.”
Not long after the exchange between NASA and Apollo 11, the mission reached the Moon where the three astronauts prepared for lunar descent.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on July 20 but it would take six hours of preparations until they left their Eagle Lunar Module on July 21.
Upon their return to Earth on July 24, after spending more than 21 hours on the Moon, the three pioneers were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.
NASA Moon landing: Buzz Aldrin saw THIS out the Apollo 11 window - "It"s casting a shadow" - Express.co.uk
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