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SEE THAT TINY blue dot with the arrow pointing to it? Well, that’s the earth as seen from the planet Saturn.
In the picture, taken on Friday 19 July by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, you can also see Saturn’s rings and the moon.
Earth, which is 1.44 billion kilometres (898 million miles) away in this image, appears as a blue dot, while the moon can be seen as a fainter protrusion off its right side. The other bright dots nearby are stars.
In this image by Cassini you can see the moon and the earth. It’s only the third time ever the earth was pictured from the outer solar system.
“We can’t see individual continents or people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary of who we were on July 19,” Linda Spilker, Cassini spacecraft lead scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
These images show views of the earth and the moon from NASA’s Cassini (left) and MESSENGER spacecraft (right). In the Cassini image, the wide-angle camera has captured Saturn’s rings, while in the MESSENGER image, the earth and the moon appear as a pair of bright stars.
MESSENGER was at a distance of (98 million kilometres (61 million miles) from earth when it took this image.
“That images of our planet have been acquired on a single day from two distant solar system outposts reminds us of the nation’s (USA) stunning technical accomplishments in planetary exploration,” said MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY.
(All images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
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Just….Wow!!!!!
I cam see my house!
So the earth is balanced on the back of an elephant ………
Talk about homesickness
Is that white thing under it an alien rocket coming to invade??
Just a spec of dust in the infinite cosmos, why can’t we all just get along? Beautiful picture.
Are you Charlene’s brother??
Haha nope, unfortunately not. She a lovely girl tho.
So damm hot!!
I didn’t know there was a massive arrow below the earth
I presume it would only be visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere!
For now my guess is we will all see it soon
No wonder the dinosaurs were killed off, an asteroid can easily find earth when there is a massive arrow pointing at it.
Not bad James, not bad, although some theorists believe the dinosaurs could have been wiped out by the changing polarity of the earths magnetic field. The brief time it had collapsed allowed enough solar radiation through to wipe out most life.
That massive arrow could of had an affect on the earth’s magnetic field.
That massive arrow is made of dried dinosaur tears, which as everybody know is a non ferrous metal.
That’s what the scientists think. Who cares about them…what does the bible say?!
On the 7th day God created The Arrow
James “the arrow” murphy.
catchy, I like. All hail The Arrow
The polarity of the Earth changes regularly. The evidence from the asteroid impact is strong. There are dinosaur fossils below the layer left by the impact but none above.
And out of who’s quiver did it come?
True William, about once every 100,000 years. I didn’t say I believed it I said some theorists believe it could be true. We should (I’m taking you are involved in Science in some shape or form, you know what you are talking about) question these things and put forward various hypothesis.
A load of Chinese actually live on the arrow. That’s because every time they get into a taxi they say ” ‘h-arrow”…
It could be the arrow showing the landing strip for aliens who drive big 777 type aircraft . Hopefully the auto throttles work as I’d hate to be hit by one which comes in too slow . The aliens are coming !
You guys are all wrong. That’s the moon. What we see when we look up is just a disk. However, due to lack of perspective we can see it actual shape. The “moon” is actually a cone with a cylinder on the other face. That’s why the moon landing was a hoax.
There are just two planets between Saturn and Earth in a distance of 898 million miles, all orbiting one star in a galaxy of approximately 200 billion stars. That’s one galaxy in possibly billions of galaxies. Are we alone? Very very unlikely.
Gary, how are you calculating those odds? We simply don’t know. There might be life elsewhere but intelligent life might be very rare. There’s only been one species of the millions on Earth after 4.5 billion years of evolution that can take such a picture.
William how is it possible to say we are the only species advanced enough to take such a picture. We have never even landed a man on our nearest planet and let alone leave our solar system. We have two crafts that have left or are only on the verge of leaving our solar system. If every star above us has on average 8 planets orbiting them and think of how many stars, let alone galaxies there are. I know the Frank Drake equation is only theoretical but he calculated the least case scenario of 50,000 planets in the Goldilocks zone alone in the Milky Way. Human like creatures have only been around for about 200,000 years which is a very short length of time compared to the approx age of the universe.
Gary, read what I said again. I said we are the only species on Earth out of millions of species that can take this picture. You misquoted me.
The Drake equation is being filled out as knowledge progresses and the odds are going in the right direction but we still can’t compute the odds of there being any more intelligent life than ours in the universe. Earth is about 1/3 the age of the universe and we only have one intelligent species capable of advanced technology after 400,000,000 years of animal life. The there is the question of how long we will last. Intelligent species may always destroy their planet.
The Americans don’t know how to phone Europe – how the hell did they take a photo from Saturn?
Sorry William I read your comment too quickly and missed the “on earth” part. But you are still only dealing with intelligent life on this planet. My point was in my opinion it’s very implausible to suggest we are alone in the universe due to the volume of stars. Intelligent life somewhere else may know we are here but are not bothered by us or the vastness of space they also think they are alone. It’s a numbers game for me.
Gary, read a book called the “If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens – Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to Fermi’s Paradox and the Problem”… by Stephen Webb
It’s VERY difficult to believe that the universe has lots of intelligent life and we can’t detect any sign of it.
We may be alone, we may be the first. Wouldn’t it be a bit of a shame we destroyed the Earth or didn’t save it when that asteroid with our name on it came at us? Imagine the only intelligent species in the universe and we failed.
Hawking’s “life in the universe” and ” the origin of life” by Alex Oparin would be pro intelligent life elsewhere. There seems to be an even split of for and against so I guess it’s up to whatever side you agree with.
Gary,
There are around 200 billion galaxies in the known Universe. Each with 200-400 million stars, each of them with their own planetary system. They say that there is a star in space for every grain of sand on every beach on earth combined. That’s hard to imagine.
I agree with you 100% that it simply cannot be just us amongst all that space.
Sorry that should read “200-400 billion stars”.
Karol, unfortunately there isn’t a shred of evidence at present that there is a single another planet with intelligent life.
I know that William but there is a very good reason for that. We have only discovered less than 1000 planets. Even though we know there are trillions out there. We simply cannot see them because their star outshines them. Plus we are so far away from them.
Travelling at the speed of light (174,000 miles per second) it would take 4.2 years to get there. And as you well know we cannot travel at that speed.
One of the first probes we sent into space is currently travelling at 7 miles a second, which is the fastest we have ever gotten anything to travel in space. If we were travelling at that speed it would take 88,000 years to reach our nearest star. Nearest.
Trust me there could be intelligent life on one planet in the habitable zone in every single solar system and we wouldn’t have the first clue.
Space is just too vast unfortunately.
Sorry,
The 4.2 years refers to our nearest star.
Karol, of course there could be intelligent life everywhere, BUT we have no evidence there is. If intelligent life was common we would have detected its signal, its presence. We’ve detected NOTHING whatsoever. Wishing there was counts for nothing.
That’s just my point. If there is intelligent life everywhere we wouldn’t have detected it. The very first radio broadcast sent into space only left our solar system very recently. In other words it hasn’t even come close to reaching our nearest star.
I just don’t think you get how absolutely massive space is.
i think the point that has been missed is we have only been capable of looking for, or understanding there may be other intelligent life out there for such a small amount of time (relatively in the life of the universe) that we may have missed it. Huge civilizations could have come and gone before us, without us having any knowledge of them.
We dont even know all there is to know about early civilizations here let alone on other planets or galaxies
Karol, when our first broadcast was sent is irrelevant. If the galaxy is teeming with intelligence, IT (excuse the pun) would have left a signature. All things being equal, as many of them would be more advanced than us as less and therefore some would be millions of years more technologically advanced. They would be transmitting for millennia or even billions of years. There are no signals of any description. If intelligent life is out there it’s rare. Furthermore if interstellar travel is possible we would have been visited. No evidence of that either. Where’s the satellite that they would have left behind to keep studying us?
The first signal is not irrelevant. If there is intelligent life out there they simply do not know we are here. Again, you don’t seem to comprehend how utterly huge the Universe is. There are stars in the Universe that are billions of light years away. That means to get there would take billions of year travelling at the speed of light. Billions.
Karol, I am as aware as any human can be of the size of the universe. For all intents and purposes intelligent life would have to be in our Galaxy. As I said when we started sending data is irrelevant. If there was intelligent life, no matter how far away, we would be detecting its signals which could have been sent billions of years ago or its presence. We are not. There is no evidence of intelligent life and the very fact that it only arose ONCE in 400,000,000 years of animal life on this planet in itself indicates it’s rare. Furthermore, the human population fell to about 10,000 individuals at one stage so we could have gone extinct.
I believe slime+ life is common, maybe even animals but there is no evidence for the existence of intelligent life elsewhere and plenty of reasons to doubt it is common. Bacteria and Slime type life had to exist on Earth for 3,000,000,000 years before the first animal evolved. That’s 1/4 the age of the universe.
I might add that even if it does exist, the distances involved might make the fact almost irrelevant.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. 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. 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.
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.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
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.”
Carl Sagan.
Made me well up a bit there. Amazing words by a brilliant man.
Jaysus that took ages to read….
he was a great man – . If by any chance one has not viewed his series the Cosmos – it is well worth viewing – should be compulsory in every school – an incredible series by a wonderful man .
Also to think that people were tortured / imprisoned for saying that this speck was not the centre not alone of the solar system – but of the Universe – and there are still people in the world [inc Ireland ]who believe this to be the case – and planet earth is 6,000 yo !!
The Cosmos series is being redone btw.
I couldn’t have said it better myself , if we could only just get along a little better . Any chance another mass would help ?
We are so small but think we are so important
Well considering there is no other intelligent life near us, we’re kind of a big deal…
I don’t know how to put this…..but….. I’m kind of a big deal….
People know me
Put it back to scale would an ant realize a motorway is been built 2 miles away from her nest ?
What is your definition of “near” Adam?
….and that’s just Michael D.
And to think there are two groups of people in the north fighting over who can march down it…we hardly matter when you look at that photo
Where there’s religion…………
There’s a way !
Truly amazing solar system we live in
Yeah, the Earth is the problem.
The wonders of the universe..
I can see the fire on Howth head in that picture.
cool story steve bro needs more dragons and shit..
I truly believe there is life in other planets!!! Like c’mon look how small we are in the solar system.
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena” – Carl Sagan talking about the original Pale Blue Dot picture of over 20 years ago. How much has changed between these two snapshots of humanity
We’ve now got Jedward. Progress :)
We are a way for the universe to contemplate itself – carl sagan
This is proper news instead a stinky poopy baby
Worrying about work, your car, who said what to whom on a night out? Take a good hard look at that photo and put it in perspective
With its infestation of terrified lunatics.
We are a mere pimple on the arse of the universe
Really makes you think about how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things!
Kids should be taught more science which may just help them better be able to ward of the prehistoric nonsense that is organized religion.
Can you explain the reason some scientists are religious then simon?
@ Paddy. Name one.
@Simon, I am a scientist & personally don’t have any time for organised religion but if you take a look at this list on the following link you’d be surprised……alot!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
tell me what you think?
How do you like them apples simon? ;-)
Pat/Paddy, if you’re a scientist you’d think you would know your name. Isn’t it Patrick?
A survey of the scientists attending an American Association of Science meeting found 6% believed in god and that’s in the US.
Very few scientists are religious, it doesn’t compute, it’s illogical and there is no evidence. Do you leave your critical faculties at the Church door?
Do you agree with Richard Smalley, who is listed, and believe in Intelligent Design?
Freeman Dyson said this “I am myself a Christian, a member of a community that preserves an ancient heritage of great literature and great music, provides help and counsel to young and old when they are in trouble, educates children in moral responsibility, and worships God in its own fashion. But I find Polkinghorne’s theology altogether too narrow for my taste. I have no use for a theology that claims to know the answers to deep questions but bases its arguments on the beliefs of a single tribe. I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension”. Weird sort of Christian…….
Jocelyn Bell Burnell was brought up in Northern Ireland, so say no more. NI is the brainwashing center of Ireland with more fanatics per sq inch than any other part of Ireland or the UK.
Why did you give us only a list of Christian “scientists”, why not Hindu, Muslim, Pagan etc.. Or is it because they are all wrong?
William I’m not Pat Murphy, We are not one account.
But to answer your question “Isn’t it Patrick?” Nope, my fake name is Paddy. You can decide whatever way to lengthen/shorten it whatever way you like.
My question to simon was actually a question, because I can never figure out the answer to that one myself. Also i’m not a church goer, but have my own beliefs. I dont appreciate others telling people what to believe and what not to believe.
OK. Confusing. Two people with the same name and both making similar points within an hour.
Paddy, you mustn’t like religious people then. Not alone do they tell people what to believe, they try and force them – often under pain of death.
Spoken like a true “believer” paddy. Really what you mean is its ok to allow the majority of Christians stuff their ideology down everyone’s throat and feel superior for it. How can you tell someone what not to believe in a faith? That’s curious to me. Again what you mean here is dont question believers and suggest that their blind faith of something unproven is misplaced at best. Remember, that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. Say a prayer for me will you. Tell Jesus I think he’s a clown and let’s await for plague of locusts.
No need to gang up guys, You wont convert me. As i said I have my own mind, my own beliefs, No one elses, I dont mock anyone for what they WANT to believe in, That’s what you two need to understand about life and people. William I’m surrounded by religious people and none of them every try and force anything on me so that point doesn’t make sense to me. Simon if you think you’re mocking me with the Jesus prayer thing, well you aren’t mate. But if you feel you need someone to pray for you maybe you have some issues that you should sort out. I’m not suggesting you pray yourself, But maybe lighten up a tad would be a start
some of the scientists are idiots Paddy
I can see Varadkars massive head wow!
Look closely and you can clearly see the Orange Orders marching route from this distance.
Put simply, we’re somebody else’s star.
Puts things into perspective. How small we are.
And awesome! Billions of sperm in billions of people on one of billions of planets in one of billions of galaxies from a timespan of billions(or infinite?) of years!
I feel so small and insignificant. We all are, that’s our home, just us. At least no other people, species or whatever any closer. Why can’t we just get along well?
The problem is some people are just dicks and impossible to get along with
This is gods creation. God bless it and all who live on it. All glory to god who built all this wonder in 7 days
It was built in six days, on the seventh he rested
And on the 8th day was added to the missing persons list.
Didn’t he create any apostrophes? :)
On the 7 th day he rested in an Irish pub and he can be seen to this day nailed to the wall so he couldn’t escape .
Nice video about the Cassini spacecraft, and one of its previous awesome pictures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrcahpRACcE
http://i.imgur.com/QGKdQ.jpg (middle left white dot is earth)
That’s so cool!!
Beats the pants of Voyager 1′s pale blue dot image.
Have we worked out who owns that blue planet ?
Limerick actually looks like a nice place to live from this angel….!
amazing stuff. we are not alone
Incredible stuff, makes u feel very small indeed
Saturn is actually one eye of the solar system belonging to earth and Pluto the other as Saturn is the last planet you can see the earth unless your behind the sum. And to think none of you said ahh home, you should be ashamed alchemists! And sorry for the use of an actual scientific word especially since it was there before religion…. LOL but not faith.
Sun not sum.
have your say