Wednesday, July 31, 2013

You Are Here

Usually spacecraft gallivanting around the solar system can't take pictures of the Earth after they've made their way to their destinations, because when you get far enough out our planet and the sun are often within the same frame. The extreme brightness of the sun is not friendly to the super-sensitive cameras that the satellites use.

But the other day, the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn happened to be in a place where the bulk of the ringed planet hid the bright sun and scientists directed it to take a picture of us.
I hope I didn't blink.

Check out the link to see the photo larger and a couple of others as well.

The key observation to make is that even from as relatively close in space as Saturn, we are one tiny dot. And between us and Saturn are only Mars, Jupiter, and an orbiting belt of rocks; we're practically cup-of-sugar-borrowing distance from each other in astronomical terms. From Cassini's point of view, 99.9999999+% of everything humanity has ever built takes up less than a pixel's width on its camera.

More perspective-thought producing.

No comments: