File:Earth and Moon from Saturn (49979892177).png

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Original file(1,024 × 1,024 pixels, file size: 35 KB, MIME type: image/png)

Captions

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Summary

[edit]
Description

This true-color composite view of Earth and Moon from Saturn was captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on 19th July, 2013. Cassini's narrow-angle camera took [the 3 raw images (in red, green, and blue visible light filters) combined to create this composite photograph from approximately 898,410,414 miles (1,445,851,410 kilometers) away.

<a href="https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/search/?fq=TARGET_NAME:earth&fq=ATLAS_MISSION_NAME:cassini&fq=-ATLAS_THUMBNAIL_URL:brwsnotavail.jpg&q=*:*" rel="noreferrer nofollow">pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/search/?fq=TARGET_NAME%3Aearth&a...</a>

The bright spot in the middle is Earth and the smaller bright spot under it to the left is the Moon. The rest of the white spots are background stars while the colored specks are the result of high-energy particles hitting the spacecraft camera's CCD sensor.

Interestingly, this prospect of Earth captured by Cassini was the original Voyager "Pale Blue Dot" photo envisioned by Carl Sagan, but whose imaging was postponed due to NASA bureaucracy until Voyager 1 exited the Solar System:

"The Voyagers were guaranteed to work only until the Saturn encounter. I thought it might be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, I knew, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel, hardly distinguishable from the many other points of light Voyager could see, nearby planets and far-off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having."

-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
Date
Source Earth and Moon from Saturn
Author Raziel Abulafia

Licensing

[edit]
Creative Commons CC-Zero This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

This image was originally posted to Flickr by razielabulafia at https://flickr.com/photos/187631144@N02/49979892177. It was reviewed on 13 May 2021 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-zero.

13 May 2021

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current18:21, 13 May 2021Thumbnail for version as of 18:21, 13 May 20211,024 × 1,024 (35 KB)Sentinel user (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons

There are no pages that use this file.

Metadata