The snapshot of Earth from Mars. (1 Viewer)

[Shawn Shultzaberger]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...alienearth.htm

This picture really puts things into perspective.

When I look at that picture I try to imagine myself in a ship of some sort looking back on Earth from such a great distance and I get a feeling I just can't explain. Maybe extreme awe and loneliness? That we are an inconsiquential spec of dust in the vastness of the Universe?

I believe that we really need to increase the amount of research for space travel. If we keep increasing the survival rate of the human species we are going to have one crowded world. Don't want to have to eat Soylent Green you know.

 

[CharlesD]

Here is the full picture (420kb) If you scroll down to the bottom Jupiter and some of its moons are also visible. Amazing pictures!

 

[ken thompson]

In that larger picture, why can you see all of Jupiter and only half of Earth. Those lighting perspectives dont match.

 

[Joel Mack]

This picture will answer your question:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2.../alignment.gif

 

[CharlesD]

In that larger picture, why can you see all of Jupiter and only half of Earth. Those lighting perspectives dont match.

Because Earth is in between Mars and the Sun, and Jupiter is the other side of the Sun from Mars. So from this view point we are seeing Earth from "behind" and Jupiter from "in front" with respect to the lit hemisphere of each planet.

 

[Julie K]

Those lighting perspectives dont match.

The picture is taken from Mars, and since Earth is closer to the Sun than Mars, the Earth will show phases. Jupiter, being farther out, won't.

 

[Tommy Ceez]

Every person who has ever lived and died, ever war ever fought, every piece of music ever composed, every person you know or have ever heared of has all happened on that little bluish dot.

 

[Scott DeToffol]

Wow, that's very cool. The Earth's moon is much farther away from Earth than I imagined.

 

[Julie K]

While it is wonderful to reflect on how small the Earth appears in this photo, it should be remembered that this is the view from a close neighbor. Picture this: at the edge of our solar system the Sun will look like just a bright star.

And that's still very very close compared to everything else out there.

To add a bit of perspective:
Depending on the relative positions of Earth and Mars, it takes some 5 to 20 minutes for light to travel between the two planets.

Our closest stellar neighbor is four light years away. It takes four years for light to travel from our Sun to Alpha Centauri. Imagine how tiny our planet would look from there.

The distances to nearby galaxies are measured in millions of light years.

And now, based on some newer cosmological theories, what we see out there, the huge numbers of galaxies at distances almost too large to be understood, is just a tiny fraction of the whole universe.

 

[Darrel McBane]

I think I can see my house.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it?

I have a sudden urge... *ahem*

{CarlSaganVoice}We are bits of cosmic flotsam, adrift in the ocean of the universe{/CarlSaganVoice}



Very cool photos.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I feel compelled to sing the Galaxy song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

( c'mon everybody - you know the words )

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

- Walter.

 

[Ricardo C]

It's such a beautiful sight

The fact that this world, which has seen the rise of such a varied civilization, can look like such a tiny spec when seen from a neighboring planet, gives me renewed hope that perhaps those distant, non-descript stars in the night sky are feeding the development of other civilizations on other tiny blue specs

Seeing Earth looking so small doesn't make me feel lonely or insignificant, it makes me feel hopeful

 

[BrianW]

Wow, that's very cool. The Earth's moon is much farther away from Earth than I imagined.

And it may indeed be farther than this picture suggests. We don't know where the Moon was in its orbit (well, I don't, anyway), and the perspective from Mars at the time the picture was taken may not show the maximum distance between Earth and its moon.

One way to get a handle on this is to look at the wide angle between the suggested planes of orbit of Earth's moon and the Jovian moons. Though the plane of the Moon's orbit can't be accurately measured without knowing where the Moon was in its orbit at the time of the picture (unlike the plane of the Jovian moons, which the picture defines very accurately) the picture suggests that the Earth-Moon system is drastically out of skew from the ecliptic as defined by the Jovian moons. Because I know that the Moon's orbital plane is actually only 5 degrees off from the ecliptic, I have to conclude that the Moon is in a position in its orbit that puts it substantially in front of or behind Earth, and that its true distance is much, much farther than is suggested by the picture.

 

[Scott McGillivray]

I think I can see my house.

That cracked me up! Thanks...I needed that!