Our Glorious Planet: As Seen From Mercury
I never ceases to amaze me just how massive the universe is.
Take for example, this photo of the Earth and our moon, taken from roughly 114 million miles away.
Image Courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Click on the image to wonderfully aggrandize (thank you Thesaurus.com).
The image was taken from a NASA mission called MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging). MESSENGER was launched in 2004 and has done 3 flybys of Mercury, on its way to be in a permanent orbit to study the planet in 2011.
It is truly humbling to see our planet as a tiny speck in the vastness of space.
As Carl Sagan would say: “One voice in the cosmic fugue.”
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A Quantum of Knowledge 
Nice! Love the prespective! I wonder what degree we are seeing the Earth-Moon orbit at?
Thanks!
Thats a good question, and to be honest I’m not sure.
I do find interesting, though, how large the Earth’s moon is compared to the Earth. Its actually quite incredible when you think about it.
Yup! This post of yours got me thinking about how we look from outside…so I got some of them together on my website…http://curiousdale.posterous.com/stepping-out-from-the-pale-blue-dot
This post actually inspired it!
Ciao
Dale