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  • 12-03-2004 12:26pm
    #1
    Sparks
    Registered Users Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭


    11-ml-02-earth-A067R1_br.jpg

    Okay, so it doesn't look like much, but this is earth, seen from the Spirit rover on mars - and it's the first time that earth has been photographed from the surface of another planet (the moon doesn't count).

    Neat or what?


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    #2
    albertw
    Closed Accounts Posts: 395 ✭✭albertw


    For those of you who havent see it, this is the Earth as seen from the voyager spacecraft at a distance of 4 billion miles.

    earthpbd.jpg

    In light of Madrid, Carl Sagan puts it best.
    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

    http://www.planetary.org/html/society/advisors/sagandot.html


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    #3
    Exit
    Registered Users Posts: 2,267 ✭✭✭Exit


    I always find pictures of Earth to be both beautiful and humbling, and these are just that.

    Good posts.


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    #4
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    re Carl Sagans comments...I think its a pity we can't get everyone who has a lust for power into space for a spin round the planet. I'm sure they'd come back better people.

    Mike

    *God I sound like a hippy, sorry!* :ninja:


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    #5
    CH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 358 ✭✭CH


    Speaking of earth and humbling images... does anyone know where I could download the intro to the film "Contact" staring Jodi Foster. The intro I'm talking about is where the camera pans upwards from a house, into outer space and keeps on going and going for about 3-4 minutes. Makes you realise how alone we are here.

    Regards,
    Craig.


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