Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo, little Earth...


From NASA:

View of Earth From Saturn
In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame...
Earth, which is 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away in this image, appears as a blue dot at center right; the moon can be seen as a fainter protrusion off its right side. An arrow indicates their location in the annotated version...
This is only the third time ever that Earth has been imaged from the outer solar system. The acquisition of this image, along with the accompanying composite narrow- and wide-angle image of Earth and the moon and the full mosaic from which both are taken, marked the first time that inhabitants of Earth knew in advance that their planet was being imaged.

Hello, earth.
Hello, earth.
With just one hand held up high
I can blot you out,
Out of sight.

--Kate Bush, "Hello Earth"


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html#.UfCkx_XaIyb

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