The Earth from Saturn (photo)

Wisdom Quarterly; BBC News (bbc.co.uk)

Earth seen in the bottom right of the image beyond Saturn's majestic ring system (NASA)

  

Bhumi "Earth" Devi (MM)

NASA has released photos of the Earth and Moon taken by a spacecraft orbiting Saturn -- nearly a billion miles away. Our planet and its only satellite appear only as [pale blue] dots in the picture, which was taken by the Cassini spacecraft on July 19, 1990. Scientists wanted to pay homage to the "Pale Blue Dot" image captured by the Voyager 1 probe in 1990. This was the first time people knew in advance that their long distance picture was being taken. As part of the event launched by NASA, people were asked to wave in what Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's camera team, described as an "interplanetary cosmic photo session." "It thrills me no end... More

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