Posted on 07/24/2013 3:46:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting the gas giant. Pictured on the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against a dark background, as captured by the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft now orbiting Mercury. In the MESSENGER image, the Earth (left) and Moon (right) shine brightly with reflected sunlight. MESSENGER took the overexposed image last Friday as part of a search for small natural satellites of the innermost planet, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. During this same day, humans across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA & NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Inst. Washington]
Those are cool pictures.
I should post the picture from Saturn over at LunaticOutpost and claim there is a spaceship shaped like an arrow approaching the Earth.
Cool. I never thought about it before ... from Mercury, the Earth/Moon would look like a double planet, although the moon would be far dimmer(the surface of the moon only reflects 1/3 the light of the earth, per square foot, and has less than 1/13 the apparent area, so it would be about 1/40 as bright as the earth, but still visible by the naked eye)
as the distance from the earth to the moon is 30X the earths diameter, this picture shows the moon as it just about to go behind the earth/just came out from behind the earth/just about to go in front of the earth/just came out from in front of the earth.
also I would assume that the atmosphere free extremely white moon would reflect more of the suns light per square foot than the earth with its blue oceans and diffusing atmosphere....
Where are all the stars in these photos?
My guess is that the photos have been enhanced to highlight the red end of the spectrum to pick up the reflected light of the earn/moon image. This would cause the less red images of the background stars to dim considerably.
Who put that arrow there? LOL.
Great Pics...gives one “Perspective”!
While Saturn watched I photobombed Earth.
I was wondering why we don’t see Sol in the pic
Ah, that makes sense. If you view the source photo full size, there are some stars faintly visible in the Saturn side.
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