In today’s world it’s hard to find things that are truly amazing but I found one today. If you look closely at the picture above you can see a tiny blue dot and that dot is our earth. This picture was taken by the NASA Cassini spacecraft which was positioned in Saturn’s shadow. Here is how the Cassini Team website describes the picture….
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn’s shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings — and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.
With the sun’s powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini’s onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn’s orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
I hope you agree with me that this picture is indeed amazing and gives all of us a unique perspective of our place in universe. I encourage you to visit the Cassini Team page, using the link provided above, to view some much higher resolution versions of the image at the top of this post.
Since this is a music blog, I feel like we need some music to go with this amazing picture….how about a little Space Truckin from the amazing Deep Purple……
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 