Waspie_Dwarf Posted July 22, 2013 #1 Share Posted July 22, 2013 NASA Releases Images of Earth Taken by Distant Spacecraft PASADENA, Calif. -- Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space.NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet. Read more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saru Posted July 23, 2013 #2 Share Posted July 23, 2013 Another fantastic view of the "pale blue dot". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted July 23, 2013 Author #3 Share Posted July 23, 2013 Images like this remind me how small and fragile our planet really is. A tiny oasis of blue in the vast black desert of space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spacenut56 Posted July 24, 2013 #4 Share Posted July 24, 2013 Its just a trippy photo. Even saw it mentioned on my evening local news last night. Our tiny little blue home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsec Posted July 24, 2013 #5 Share Posted July 24, 2013 Wow, it's really amazing. Are the pictures in true colors? I didn't think the Moon was so distant from Earth, I'd thought it closer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted July 25, 2013 Author #6 Share Posted July 25, 2013 I didn't think the Moon was so distant from Earth, I'd thought it closer. The Earth has a diameter of 12,742 km. The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400 km so the distance between them is 30 times the Earth's diameter. Of course, depending on the geometry of the Earth, Moon and spacecraft when the image was taken this distance could look smaller than that, but it is still a long way. It represent the furthest distance humans have ever travelled. However, to put that into perspective, on 27th August 2003 Mars and Earth were the closest they had been for 60,000 years. That distance: 55,758,006 km, that is 145 times further than the Apollo astronauts flew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundew Posted July 25, 2013 #7 Share Posted July 25, 2013 I like it when they suggested everyone wave at the camera. Hope they caught my good side and I didn't blink. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsec Posted July 25, 2013 #8 Share Posted July 25, 2013 The Earth has a diameter of 12,742 km. The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400 km so the distance between them is 30 times the Earth's diameter. Of course, depending on the geometry of the Earth, Moon and spacecraft when the image was taken this distance could look smaller than that, but it is still a long way. It represent the furthest distance humans have ever travelled. However, to put that into perspective, on 27th August 2003 Mars and Earth were the closest they had been for 60,000 years. That distance: 55,758,006 km, that is 145 times further than the Apollo astronauts flew. Yeah, I know, but still, seeing the Moon in the sky, it looks like so close. That image for me put things in an interesting perspective. Usually in graphic representations (for obvious reasons) Moon isn't portrayed so distant, but you just have to do some math, and it's simple to understand the real proportions. Still, for me it's an image worth 100 words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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