Earth As Seen from Mars

Franny Wentzel: 24th Apr 2010 - 02:45 GMT

www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4542423536/

Ralph: 27th Apr 2010 - 20:52 GMT

Remarkable! Leaves me speechless. This photo is ... WOW!

jswana: 27th Apr 2010 - 23:45 GMT

My love for astronomy makes this a wonderful read for me.

Herbert: 28th Apr 2010 - 00:14 GMT

Of course, a Photoshop troll.

Strange how so much life can be on one little white blip in the sky. The possibilities are endless in the universe.

Cheshire: 28th Apr 2010 - 01:02 GMT

Okay, let me explain something real quick. GreenEgg does NOT actually believe this is a digitally altered photo. The commenter is merely spreading forth a popular internet fad and simultaneously attempting to garner negative feedback and rage from other people who, for reasons unknown, have STILL not heard about what is quickly becoming the oldest joke on the Internet.

With that said, amazing picture. I would love to see this species move forward in space exploration and colonization so that I can see this view in person in my life time..

donald m.: 28th Apr 2010 - 02:42 GMT

what a view....amazing, that's how other planets view us...just like we view them!!!

Prot: 28th Apr 2010 - 15:26 GMT

K-PAXians have been around long enough to have discovered. The universe will expand, then it will collapse back on itself, then will expand again. It will repeat this process forever. What you don't you know is that when the universe expands again, everything will be as it is now. Whatever mistakes you make this time around, you will live through on your next pass. Every mistake you make, you will live through again, & again, forever. So my advice to you is to get it right this time around. Because this time is all you have. This BA-3 planet has potential...yet so unforeseeable.

Ash: 28th Apr 2010 - 19:57 GMT

Nice composite :) Would sit nicely alongside the 'Pale Blue Dot'

Drew: 30th Apr 2010 - 15:41 GMT

Makes all the bull sh*t going on seem so insignificant...

Franny Wentzel: 1st May 2010 - 20:22 GMT

View of Mars from the Hubble telescope...

nina: 2nd May 2010 - 17:10 GMT

wow, that is awesome.
we mean so much to some people on earth,
but in reality, we're a tiny speck

haha, love it.

Grey: 3rd May 2010 - 06:07 GMT

Of course it's shopped. You really think the road sign pointing at Earth was in English? Sheesh.

lol

P.S. Awesome photo.

Rringo Star: 3rd May 2010 - 07:31 GMT

Dude, kickin. What's even more kickin is that with my view, that makes 91919. Thanks stumble.

Carl Sagan: 3rd May 2010 - 10:38 GMT

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 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.

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.

Franny Wentzel: 3rd May 2010 - 12:16 GMT

Just another stuck pixel on Klaatu's tricorder...

anon (94.55.136.20): 3rd May 2010 - 19:59 GMT

Definitely photoshopped. The arrow is a dead giveaway.

Marvin the Martian: 3rd May 2010 - 22:40 GMT

Oh you puny Earthlings! Martian cameras can pick out points of interest and label au-to-ma-ti-cal-ly! No need for your 'Pho-to-shop'...

Gabriel: 4th May 2010 - 08:16 GMT

Many made the point that we are insignificant because of how small we are. However, I would say that we are pretty damn important if being this small we are able to flourish in such a big universe.

magz: 4th May 2010 - 17:30 GMT

I dont think of this picture to show us how insignificant we are because of our size but quite the opposite. It shows how along we are and how far everything else from us. It shows me that if we destroy this one planet we have like we are now there will be no where else to go. We are so significant to exist in such a monstrously large, filled and yet so empty universe that we should take care of life much better. Life shouldn't be about power or money.

D: 4th May 2010 - 18:06 GMT

People can be so stupid. Who cares if it's photo shopped or not. Will you ever be there to be able to tell? But what it does give you is a moment to envision. To put yourself there, as if you were there. Who knows when you will be able to be there. Just appreciate the beauty of it. To Gabriel. do you really think we are flourishing? The destruction of our planet, the crime, the war, the insanity, the propaganda and the pollution as just mere factors are enough to tell us all that we are surely not prospering but it is a clue that we can flourish if we can band together and reverse the bullshit. Clear the planet!

Lindsay: 5th May 2010 - 04:04 GMT

To think about all the ways we impact our own little planet. Then think of the ways we could be harming other things out there we have yet to discover. All the crap we throw out in space is going to be a alien's shooting star on day. So should we throw more crap out there? I like meteor showers.lol

BoT: 5th May 2010 - 23:04 GMT

That rover must have been so lonely up there. We're so far away!

Franny Wentzel: 6th May 2010 - 01:12 GMT

Doesn't seem to be finding much either...

paul: 6th May 2010 - 14:00 GMT

Earth from Mars would of course be much much brighter than Mars from Earth.....I'd be interested to see a shot with Phobos and/or Diemos in it.

Zach Lightcap: 6th May 2010 - 23:58 GMT

Hi! Allah'u'ahba! Are you Bahai? www.bahaiworld.org

Redhorse: 9th May 2010 - 11:45 GMT

Kind of weird, seeing us from that perspective. The earth seems to huge. To see it as a tiny speck, it makes me feel like a Who wondering where Horton is.

Luke: 10th May 2010 - 02:38 GMT

Big deal, I used to bullseye wamp rats in my T16 back home.

PATRICK: 11th May 2010 - 01:14 GMT

But I'm also here....nice to have a perspective though.

jack: 11th May 2010 - 03:21 GMT

i knew a girl in 1952
fair skinned blonde with eyes of blue.
she sang sweet songs
of things she knew,
said she was from mars,
a fine how do you do.

Anthony Pittarelli: 11th May 2010 - 08:02 GMT

Totally gave me a sinking feeling after I figured out what perspective I was looking from!

Anthony Pittarelli

Franny Wentzel: 11th May 2010 - 14:03 GMT

She came from Planet Claire
I knew she came from there
She drove a Plymouth Satellite
Faster than the speed of light
Planet Claire has pink air
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head
Ahhhahhhahhahh
Some say she's from Mars
Or one of the seven stars
That shine after 3:30 in the morning
WELL SHE ISN'T

Franny Wentzel: 11th May 2010 - 14:04 GMT

In the year 2117
An 8 year old gay boy named Shannon
found a magic lamp.
He was granted 3 wishes.
The first, a fur jacket.
The second, a flying car.
And the third, was a planet full of unicorns.

This is the story of that planet.

A Gay boy wished
for a planet full of unicorns
Planet Unicorn
Unicorn Planet
give it up for
Feathers
oooh, Cadillac
and Tom Cruise
ohhhhhhh
Planet Unicorn heyyy

Alte Kacher: 11th May 2010 - 21:25 GMT

Carl Sagan (Ohev Sholom) geshtorbed avech 1966.

anon (cpe-69-204-203-81.stny.res.rr.com): 12th May 2010 - 00:27 GMT

Something about this doesn't seem right. I am not sure how much zoom is used in the "pale blue dot" photo taken by voyager all those years ago, but how can the earth appear the same size from Pluto as it does from the surface of Mars. That doesn't really seem possible, but whatever.

Franny Wentzel: 12th May 2010 - 00:33 GMT

I imagine it's on account of the size of the photo being different. Carl Sagan states that Earth was only a half pixel (of a 1970s vidicon tube camera) in the Pale Blue Dot image. No date was given for the size of earth in the image acquired on Mars.

anon (pool-173-58-187-35.lsanca.fios.verizon.net): 12th May 2010 - 02:58 GMT

If that is earth, where is our double planet neighbor the moon?

Franny Wentzel: 12th May 2010 - 09:14 GMT

The moon is busy posing for a young artist...

Franny Wentzel: 12th May 2010 - 10:14 GMT

Moon (left) and Mars (right) taken with a cheap IXLA digicam back in fall 2003...

anon (adsl190-71-163-58.epm.net.co): 12th May 2010 - 23:50 GMT

Amazing,stunning and wondrous Images.I liked it so much.Thanks a lot for sharing with.

L B Sanders: 13th May 2010 - 05:12 GMT

Nice picture. For those who seem to be still missing it: The PHOTOSHOP joke is about the words 'You Are Here' not the picture itself. Thanks Stumble for bringing this picture to our attention. Sanders @ www.sharpdressedmen.ca

Kaoru: 13th May 2010 - 07:59 GMT

The perspective of size and what matters most...

It takes 7 seconds for food to pass from mouth to stomach.
A human hair can hold 3 kg.
The length of the penis is 3 times the length of the thumb.
The femur is as hard as concrete.
A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.
Women blink twice as much as men.
We use 300 muscles just to keep our balance when we stand.
The woman has read this entire text.
The man is still looking at his thumb :)

Trevor: 14th May 2010 - 00:32 GMT

We seem to be forgetting that God creared all of the Universe. He knows. Just some are dumb but that is another story.

Home Shredders: 14th May 2010 - 04:03 GMT

Nice photos. I just like the way you shared it.

Mezentia: 14th May 2010 - 07:25 GMT

God save me from cynics, sceptics, and amateur philosopers.

Humans can, and WILL adapt.: 14th May 2010 - 18:35 GMT

Obvious trolls are obvious.

Whining about a picture of Earth from Mars and deeming it "fake" is really futile. If we can take pictures of other planets from ours, then a rover with a panoramic camera can transmit one of ours back to us from another. The moment somebody makes mention of life on Mars, you see how fast everyone starts frothing at the mouth about how great God is and how His Plan is the only meaning for our existence, well guess what. Terraformation of Mars IS on the drawing board, like it or not. And personally, I don't care about a bunch of half-handed naysayers or what they have to say, because it's fatalists and biblethumpers like that who discourage free will. Escaping Earth and creating a civilization on a neighboring planet INCREDIBLY reduces the likelihood of the extinction of our species.

Fatalists will say "God will get you". I say to them "if He can chase me down in a ramjet shuttle, let him." Until such time, people like Burt Rutan will continue to dream, and others like him will continue to research ways to put the regular man in space, and ultimately, on another planet. Deal with it. You have no hope whatsoever of stopping humans from doing what humans do.

Don't like it? That's awful, I'm sorry. Cry some more tears of righteous rage and see where it gets you.

Franny Wentzel: 14th May 2010 - 19:10 GMT

Most people think Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything and make everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You will look for yours on Earth
Now you see the light - you stand up for your rights

Logan: 16th May 2010 - 08:29 GMT

heres the original picture from nasa

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a/Earth_Sol63A_Nav_Pan-A067R1_br.jpg

Franny Wentzel: 16th May 2010 - 18:13 GMT

marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a/Earth_Sol63A_Nav_Pan-A067R1_br.jpg

sathe: 17th May 2010 - 12:19 GMT

Amazing thing about the earth , i feel exhausted by seeing this

Dj Mixes Downloads

sathe: 17th May 2010 - 12:20 GMT

just feel like shit that I wont be here to see it.But thats what the tenth of my brain that I use deduces,Dont know is better.When they say"God will get you"say,.(and know)He already has,pity He skipped you,hmmmm you know,His plan and all.Just think

ttp://www.mydjdemo.com/techno-music-mp3

rezaseifouri@yahoo.com: 18th May 2010 - 05:57 GMT

with this picture we should say : God is greater than you think

because of our puny IQs...: 18th May 2010 - 12:05 GMT

We created God. So understanding what God is, is a way of understanding ourselves. We are complex neurotic creatures. Does God exist on Mars? I think not.

ayambrand: 18th May 2010 - 12:47 GMT

This loook awesooome ;)
Found this cute Smiley Crescent here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/annamir/3074535266/

[KW]Cryinbrian: 18th May 2010 - 19:50 GMT

You think this is a cool pic? Photoshopped or not, the scale is sort of wrong. Earth should at least shine more than seen, but then again, I do not know the declination or right ascension of the object or Mars' location on the ecpliptic.

Wanna know the truth? The Milky Way Galaxy is so large that, if you could blow up a picture of this spiral galaxy to the size of the United States, and then were asked to look for the Earth, you would be looking for a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot. Photoshop that.

Jeff: 23rd May 2010 - 04:12 GMT

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 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.

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.

Franny Wentzel: 23rd May 2010 - 05:08 GMT

Carl Sagan already posted that on the 3rd of May...

Franny Wentzel: 23rd May 2010 - 23:16 GMT

Parsec

The parsec (parallax of one arcsecond; symbol: pc) is a unit of length, equal to just under 31 trillion kilometres (about 19 trillion miles), or about 3.26 light-years. The parsec measurement unit is used in astronomy. It is defined as the length of the adjacent side of an imaginary right triangle in space. The two dimensions that specify this triangle are the parallax angle (defined as 1 arcsecond) and the opposite side (defined as 1 astronomical unit (AU), the distance from the Earth to the Sun). Given these two measurements, along with the rules of trigonometry, the length of the adjacent side (the parsec) can be found.

Franny Wentzel: 24th May 2010 - 07:24 GMT

The dictionary definition isn't much help either...

par0sec (pär2sRk1) n.
A unit of astronomical length based on the distance from Earth at which stellar parallax is one second of arc and equal to 3.258 light-years, 3.08661013 kilometers, or 1.918 6 1013 miles.

Neither is the diagram...

Do the best you can...

icewalker23: 28th May 2010 - 00:25 GMT

I guess we're not the big deal we thought we were.

anon (121-72-245-199.cable.telstraclear.net): 29th May 2010 - 03:45 GMT

And people settle for such a basic religion with such basic tales of existence. its clear there is so much more to learn about the universe before we can even begin to speculate how it began.

me: 6th Jun 2010 - 16:53 GMT

why are ppl so ignorant, "oh so photoshoped" we had the technology to travel moch 3 in the friggin 60's im pretty sure we can take a picture with out having it be photoshoped to show people. stop being so negative, if its not real big deal, but we have something to prove it to exist so enjoy it. pricks

mike hunt: 13th Jun 2010 - 16:12 GMT

who cares if its photoshopped? its just a dot.

Dalek: 20th Jul 2010 - 11:02 GMT

I dont care if you are a Doctor you cant park that here !!!

Billy Joe.: 29th Jul 2010 - 02:45 GMT

either that picture is fake, or God took the picture. Another ABVIOUS proof of God.

Franny Wentzel: 31st Jul 2010 - 00:16 GMT

A species that can come up with the 'Sack-o-Sauce in a Can-o-Meat' can't be all bad...

Jesse: 21st Nov 2010 - 20:32 GMT

My sister and I would always chant this togather, "he's an Oscar Mayer Wiener"
In a fun way

rayne: 25th Nov 2010 - 06:35 GMT

all the religions, wars, races, countries and realities we know on this one pixel on your computer screen that doesn't even size up to one/onetrillionth of the universe. how pathetic yet so worthwhile.

Franny Wentzel: 25th Nov 2010 - 21:15 GMT

Silly Stone... Martians don't use Photoshop...

thinking: 9th Dec 2010 - 01:49 GMT

Funny how folks who hold no real belief in a creator begin to gush with morality concerning our human condition when faced with the realization of how small and powerless we really are. A mindless explosion produces nothing but disorder. If this is our belief then we should not lament our condition but rather revel in it. If, however, one thinks there are things about our actions that are wrong one should wonder why they think a thing is wrong. If our judgment of right and wrong comes only from within then we have no right to say to anyone "don't do that!" Whatever that may happen to be. But if the source of right and wrong is beyond us then we are compelled to learn of it.

chris A: 9th Dec 2010 - 04:26 GMT

Crazy ... we go all the way to Mars just to look at ourselves. Are we insecure or what.

Eric Erickson: 9th Dec 2010 - 17:55 GMT

I just like the view! Oh ya,The morning show too!

Randombookworm: 11th Dec 2010 - 14:23 GMT

Amazing photo! My only concern is that here on Earth, when we do see mars, it's pretty small, but not THAT small. If that were to be taken, as it's the same distance away from Earth as Earth is from Mars, shouldn't the earth be a bit bigger? We're a bigger planet than them. I guess that it all depends were on Mars the picture was taken. I'll just be quiet and enjoy the picture. But those ARE my thoughts.

anon (adsl-176-159-230.asm.bellsouth.net): 13th Dec 2010 - 19:39 GMT

"...from a planet beyond the moon."

anon (adsl-176-159-230.asm.bellsouth.net): 13th Dec 2010 - 19:40 GMT

"...from a planet beyond the moon."

Pilbara Pete: 14th Dec 2010 - 10:03 GMT

Randombookworm - that 'dot' looks a little bigger than Mars looks from the Earth. And it wouldn't actually matter where on mars you were situated. The earth would still look that big. What would matter in perceived size is where the earth and mars are positioned on the ecliptic in relation to each other.

LC: 14th Dec 2010 - 19:16 GMT

uhm, cool..i guess..i don't trust any nasa photos 100% though

http://newworldorder.dyndns-web.com

anon (cpe-76-167-113-42.socal.res.rr.com): 14th Dec 2010 - 19:18 GMT

this was fantastic i think i saw a ufo last night

misterdix: 4th Jan 2011 - 18:24 GMT

I don't know why someone would comment, "uh photoshop", "duh its fotoshopped" Even if it is it doesn't matter, every planet in space can be viewed as a dot from somewhere...this picture merely reminds us how small we are, how our lives our dreams our families are only as precious as we make them and that we have only ourselves and each other for solace, support and protection. With no contact with other species on other planets we remain alone in the cosmos. Its sad when a person can't see the emotional magnitude of such a tiny pixel and find a way to take themselves less seriously and live a richer life. Its art. We are art.

santosh dhami: 5th Jan 2011 - 05:20 GMT

woo!it's nice to see the real image of the earth. Hope it is only the imaginary view of the earth as it looks small in the photo.

Stargazer: 5th Jan 2011 - 11:06 GMT

Awesome pic!! I agree that it doesnt matter whether it has been photoshopped or not - you dont believe the actual thing to be very different, do you?
As Carl Sagan and others have pointed out, the pic says much more than showing us a dot on the sky. It makes you wonder about your place in the grand scheme of things. Shows how worthless and insignificant we really are.

and P.S. Ofcourse we cannot leave God out of this. If we, the tiny speck in this vast cosmic arena, can conjure up cities, civilizations and the most mind-boggling technological innovations, surely there has to be someone who created that very tiny speck as well as the rest of the stuff that we call the universe.

Tenzito: 5th Jan 2011 - 18:11 GMT

Who cares if it's real or not it is the idea that we are out there floating around acting like a bunch of jackasses and not driving the damn speed limit... LET GO PEOPLE SOME OF US HAVE PLACES TO BE!!!!!!

Sean: 6th Jan 2011 - 05:01 GMT

How do we know that this was the first picture of earth ever taken from another planet?

anon (CPE-121-216-199-178.lnse3.ken.bigpond.net.au): 10th Jan 2011 - 08:15 GMT

i just dont get it???

xenish: 12th Jan 2011 - 16:22 GMT

Oscar Mayer seems to be great but in our nation we can't find it.

zeroe: 14th Jan 2011 - 05:52 GMT

Looking at this photo gave me a headache... We're so tiny! It makes me dizzy!
But don't get over your head Mars... We may be small but we WILL own you one of these days... Muahahaha!

~~Great pic though!

Jim: 3rd Feb 2011 - 15:19 GMT

That feeling of insignificance you get when you look down on earth from an aircraft pales into - well, insignificance to the power of n, where n is large. And this is the next planet along! I wonder if I'm too old to become a monk.

Dominic : 20th Feb 2011 - 23:14 GMT

Absolutely breathtaking.It make me want to be an astronaut and explore more of space when I grow up.

anon (d206-116-12-245.bchsia.telus.net): 16th Mar 2011 - 06:52 GMT

i can see my house

Matt: 30th Apr 2011 - 00:36 GMT

The fact that Earth looks small does not mean it's insignificant. Everything's small from a distance, our insignificance is completely unrelated.

Dave: 23rd May 2011 - 19:40 GMT

So, with all that post-production work on the photo, it's not really "Earth as seen from Mars," is it? Yeah. Learn to wrote a headline, douchenozzle.

omg: 24th May 2011 - 20:42 GMT

omg, that img. is not from the mars. that is how Voyager 1 see the earth from the edge of solar system.

this is how earth and moon look like from the mars
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro20080303earth.html

Franny Wentzel: 24th May 2011 - 21:58 GMT

That picture was taken from the orbit of Mars through a hi-resolution telescope

Top picture was taken from the surface of Mars through the navigation camera of the Rover Spirit. The inset picture is a closeup taken by the rover's pano-cam.

and to Dave, uncalled for insults only make you look bad.

Luke: 24th Aug 2011 - 05:36 GMT

Thanks for this Franny. Love a bit of perspective every now and again to keep our heads in check. And that's it, perfectly captured or not, the moral of the story goes much further beyond a photograph. It's amazing we even have this before we even start contemplating how it makes us feel. Go human race! One team! W00t!

Luke: 24th Aug 2011 - 05:36 GMT

Thanks for this Franny. Love a bit of perspective every now and again to keep our heads in check. And that's it, perfectly captured or not, the moral of the story goes much further beyond a photograph. It's amazing we even have this before we even start contemplating how it makes us feel. Go human race! One team! W00t!

anon (108-81-190-80.lightspeed.brhmal.sbcglobal.net): 1st Oct 2011 - 18:33 GMT

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."

— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut

Laela: 7th Oct 2011 - 16:33 GMT

WoW!! Thats awesome! I love it! I am so space fanatic! lol

Aaron: 13th Oct 2011 - 06:47 GMT

The landscape seems so familiar... yet so foreign.

Tony P: 16th Dec 2011 - 07:59 GMT

Makes you feel small unless you are a fool like some of the posts here

Thomas: 25th Dec 2011 - 21:09 GMT

So strange to think the only place with life in the whole universe would be on that little dot in the sky.

Franny Wentzel: 3rd Jan 2012 - 06:44 GMT

Wouldn't it be something if there was an earth/moon system on the opposite side of our orbit? We can never see it but sometimes their spaceships show up here by mistake - or out of curiousity...

colton: 15th Jan 2012 - 20:46 GMT

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 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.

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

Franny Wentzel: 16th Jan 2012 - 01:06 GMT

Carl Sagan beat you to it back in May of 2010...

Franny Wentzel: 16th Jan 2012 - 12:59 GMT

Colourised image for the Ted Turner generation...

anon (208-53-76-34.roseville.ca.digitalpath.net): 4th Feb 2012 - 20:30 GMT

if everyone is so sure its a fake then prove it

zed: 6th Feb 2012 - 03:18 GMT

Wowww....pics from space are always kinda meaningless to me. They look nice but you're just floating there in the middle of nothing. This picture is amazing because you can imagine being somewhere with gravity and a place to put your feet and a horizon to look at it. It feels like I could imagine being on another world. Really really awesome.

DutchMa$ter: 6th Feb 2012 - 22:16 GMT

I wanna smoke some chronic from another planet