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At 1039 GMT on 7 December 1972 Jack Schmitt from the crew of Apollo 17 took one of the most iconic, and certainly most reproduced photographs of all time.  NASA named it photograph AS17-148-22727, but very shortly after the picture went public it became known as ‘the blue marble’.  It is of course the picture of the near full-earth disk taken on route to the moon, with the sun directly behind the Apollo 17 spacecraft.  Interestingly it was not the first of these kinds of images from of earth.

Kath Egerton enjoys spectacular views over the Howgills and Lake District hills from her house in Cumbria. The house sits on a south facing hillside with extensive open views which gives prime position for observing the changing skies. She has also spent 22 years in the Trossachs, near Stirling, studying wildlife which included 13 years observing golden eagles during their breeding seasons and protecting them from egg thieves. Kath, as you can imagine, has experienced some interesting weather conditions.

Richard Spink tells Flemmich Webb how an almighty storm during an attempt at a low carbon crossing of the Greenland icecap led to a dramatic—and welcome—encounter with a serious quantity of fossil fuel

On 19th April, my two companions and I—Raoul and the boat’s skipper, Ben—set sail from Plymouth on Fleur, a 40ft yacht, under clear skies and a calm sea. Our plan was to carry out a low-carbon crossing of the Greenland icecap: we were going to sail about 2,000 miles to Nuuk, the capital, ski 550 miles across the icecap, then sail back to the UK.

This an extract from the forthcoming Winter issue of theWeather magazine. Join theWeather Club to read the whole article.

I would say it was the hailstorm from hell. It was 14th April 1999. I'd been in Australia a number of years doing different things, but at that particular point I was a professional didgeridoo player and teacher at a music school in eastern part in Sydney. We had invited a very famous didgeridoo player called Charlie McMahon to come and do some teaching, and he'd turned up in a brand new car. It was great.

Tania Salmen on a mountain expedition that took a slippery turn 

Sheila Snoddy on a Mexican holiday that went dramatically wrong

We can't guarantee you'll be comfortable,"" they told us at the hotel. "And we certainly can't guarantee how long it will last. But we can say one thing with certainty – no one will lose their life on this island."