APOD: Earth and Moon from Saturn (2013 Jul 22)

[APOD Robot]

Earth and Moon from Saturn

Explanation: You are here. Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here. Pictured above is the Earth-Moon system as captured by the Cassini mission orbiting Saturn in the outer Solar System. Earth is the brighter of the two spots near the center, while the Moon is visible to its lower left. The unprocessed image shows several streaks that are not stars but rather cosmic rays that struck the digital camera while it was taking the image. The image was snapped by Cassini on Friday and released on Saturday. At nearly the same time, many humans on Earth were snapping their own pictures of Saturn.

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[firstmagnitude]

You mean nobody was smiling at the time of the photograph?!

[Beyond]

Streaks Must be those two little fuzzy things to the left of the earth

[Starring]

Great caption and perfect timing for this release. It's a truly humbling thing. Perhaps ESA should also share credit? Congrats all around.

[DOUGLAS L. MARTIN]

PUT'S THE MOON LANDING IN PERSPECTIVE.

[ro-star]

could the bright vertical line going through Earth be the ring of geosync earth satellites? certainly, they are definitely in the proper orientation for that! the other two dimmer lines going through Earth in X shape are obviously lens flare

[Chris Peterson]

could the bright vertical line going through Earth be the ring of geosync earth satellites? certainly, they are definitely in the proper orientation for that! the other two dimmer lines going through Earth in X shape are obviously lens flare

There is no lens flare (the camera is part of a reflecting telescope) and you can't remotely see any artificial satellites around Earth. The vertical streaks are blooming spikes, a CCD artifact caused by overexposure. The cross-shaped streaks are diffraction spikes created by the secondary spider assembly.

[Boomer12k]

Reminds me of the images sent back from Mercury by Messenger...there was the Earth and Moon...but I don't remember all the Hubbub of everyone smiling, and taking a picture...well....anyway....nice pic, but.....I don't like how my hair looked....should have combed it first!!

:---[===] *

[neufer]

Earth and Moon from Saturn

Explanation: You are here. Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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Mars probes

Zond program — failed USSR flyby probe
Mars probe program — USSR orbiters and landers
Viking program — Two NASA orbiters and landers (1974)
Phobos program — Failed USSR orbiters and Phobos landers
Mars Pathfinder — NASA lander and rover (1997)
Mars Surveyor '98 program (Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) — Failed NASA probes
Mars Global Surveyor - NASA orbiter
Mars Odyssey — NASA orbiter, reached Mars on October 24, 2001
Mars Observer — failed NASA Mars orbiter
Mars Express (Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2) — European orbiter and failed lander 2003
Mars Exploration Rovers — NASA rovers (2004)
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — NASA orbiter, entered Martian orbit March 10, 2006
Phoenix — NASA lander, landed May 25, 2008
Mars Science Laboratory — NASA rover, launched November 26, 2011
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Venus probes

Venera program — USSR Venus orbiter and lander (1961–1984)
Pioneer Venus project — US Venus orbiter and entry probes(1978)
Vega program — USSR mission to Venus and Comet Halley (1984)
Magellan probe — US Venus orbiter (1989)
Venus Express — ESA probe sent for the observation of the Venus's weather (2005)
MESSENGER - US Fly-by/Orbiter (2004)
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Gas giant probes

Pioneer program — US Jupiter and Saturn flybys
Voyager program — US Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune flyby and study of interstellar medium
Galileo probe — US Jupiter orbiter and atmosphere probe (ended 2003)
Cassini-Huygens — US-European Saturn orbiter and Titan lander Huygens (1997–present)
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Comet and asteroid probes
9P/Tempel collides with Deep Impact's impactor

International Cometary Explorer — passed through gas tail of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner (1985)
Giotto mission — European — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
Vega 1 & 2 — USSR — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
Sakigake probe — Japanese — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
Suisei probe — Japanese — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
NEAR Shoemaker — US — asteroid 433 Eros orbiter, which later landed on the asteroid's surface, launched 1996
Deep Space 1 — US — comet 19P/Borrelly and asteroid flyby, 1998–2000
Stardust probe — US — comet 81P/Wild flyby and sample return, launched 1999, flied-by 2004, returned January 15, 2006
CONTOUR — US — comet flyby mission (comets 2P, 73P and 6P); lost due to solid rocket motor failure shortly after launch in 2002
Hayabusa — Japanese — asteroid orbiter, lander and sample return, launched 2003, returned June 13, 2010
Rosetta — European — comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko orbiter and lander (Philae); launched 2004
Deep Impact — successful US comet 9P/Tempel impactor, launched 2005
Deep Impact/EPOXI — US — comet 103P/Hartley flyby (extended Deep Impact mission) — 2010
Stardust/NExT — US — comet 9P/Tempel flyby (extended Stardust mission) — 2011
Dawn — US launched on September 27, 2007 — now orbiting Vesta in 2011, and intended to orbit Ceres by 2015.
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Solar observation probes

Ulysses — Solar particles and fields (ended 2009)
Genesis — First solar wind sample return mission, 2001–2004 (crash)
Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) — launched October 19, 2008.
Advanced Composition Explorer — Solar particles and fields observation at Earth-Sun L1 point
STEREO — Pair of probes in solar orbits providing 3D observations of Sun
SOHO — Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, Observer for Sun's corona and core located at L1 point
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Other Solar System probes

Zond program — USSR flyby missions to the Moon, Venus, and Mars
Mariner program — US Mercury, Venus and Mars flybys
MESSENGER — US Mercury orbiter, launched 2004
New Horizons — US launched on January 19, 2006 — First probe to visit Pluto (in July 2015)
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[Boomer12k]

Streaks Must be those two little fuzzy things to the left of the earth

The "Streaks" are all down the left side of the image, top to bottom...from the edge to about 1/3 across the photo...I thought it was my computer screen at first....

:---[===] *

[Markus Schwarz]

Hello,

why does Earth show diffraction spikes but the Moon does not? Is it because Earth is brighter than the Moon and Earth is overexposed? Also, other images of Earth from Cassini show Earth as faint blue dot. But here Earth and Moon both appear to be of the same color. Is this because this is a raw image taken with only one filter (the NASA side says they used two)?

[yasgur]

I can see your house from here.

[jtrue52]

What phase is the earth in in this picture (Saturn, being further from the Sun than the Earth, should see the Earth go through phases from "new" to "full").

[wonkous]

What phase is the earth in in this picture (Saturn, being further from the Sun than the Earth, should see the Earth go through phases from "new" to "full").

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 12#p203515

[neufer]

why does Earth show diffraction spikes but the Moon does not? Is it because Earth is brighter than the Moon and Earth is overexposed?

Yes

Also, other images of Earth from Cassini show Earth as faint blue dot. But here Earth and Moon both appear to be of the same color. Is this because this is a raw image taken with only one filter (the NASA side says they used two)?

An overexposed 'faint' blue dot is neither faint nor clearly blue.

[wbd]

Quite a humbling image when you think about it - to me even more so than other earth images such as the famous Blue Marble, I think because of the immense distance away from us that this images has been taken.

[BDanielMayfield]

Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

This contradicts much of what is said at funerals. Corporeal remains, yes, but I can’t agree any further than that. I regret that I can not (in this forum) offer any consoling words of explanation as to why the above quotation is not completely true.

Bruce, a minister who loves astronomy.

[Rev. Michael Stone]

"Every human who has ever lived is here" presumes we originated on Earth. Not that I disagree, I am simply not certain. What I cannot prove or disprove is still left to question. There may actually be "humans" on other worlds and as some scientists believe, there have been other universes and they may have had humans on planets whirling around their suns as well. We can only speculate. We don't really know do we?

[Chris Peterson]

Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

This contradicts much of what is said at funerals. Corporeal remains, yes, but I can’t agree any further than that.

Well, this is a science forum, so only addresses that for which there is evidence. So any spiritual beliefs aside, it is safe to assume that the caption is only referring to corporeal remains.

"Every human who has ever lived is here" presumes we originated on Earth. Not that I disagree, I am simply not certain. What I cannot prove or disprove is still left to question. There may actually be "humans" on other worlds and as some scientists believe, there have been other universes and they may have had humans on planets whirling around their suns as well. We can only speculate. We don't really know do we?

We know well enough to make the statement with a very high degree of certainty. That humans originated on Earth is certain, since we have extensive evidence of our evolution here. Even if one of the panspermia theories proves true, that transport began long before humans evolved. Similarly, there is zero evidence that any humans have left the Earth for other planets. So that just leaves your alternate/parallel universes idea... speculative is putting it mildly, and assuming they are mirrors of our own universe, complete with humans, is so far into speculation as to not warrant serious consideration.

It is possible to challenge the statement, although in a rather trivial way. Certainly, there are atoms that were once part of the bodies of human beings and which are not in the field of view of this image. Atoms that have been lost to space from the top of the atmosphere, and atoms that have been carried away on deep space probes... including the one making this image.

[emc]

One thing this APOD does besides making for a wonderful Monday morning outer space experience is, like the Pale Blue Dot image of long ago, remind me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things.

[ro-star]

Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

This contradicts much of what is said at funerals. Corporeal remains, yes, but I can’t agree any further than that. I regret that I can not (in this forum) offer any consoling words of explanation as to why the above quotation is not completely true.

Bruce, a minister who loves astronomy.

wait, wasn't Scotty beamed up into space? if so, did the remains (A) reenter, (B) remain in orbit, (C) leave orbit? if (C) then above statement is not correct;

[ro-star]

Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

This contradicts much of what is said at funerals. Corporeal remains, yes, but I can’t agree any further than that. I regret that I can not (in this forum) offer any consoling words of explanation as to why the above quotation is not completely true.

Bruce, a minister who loves astronomy.

wait, wasn't Scotty beamed up into space? if so, did the remains (A) reenter, (B) remain in orbit, (C) leave orbit? if (C) then above statement is not correct;

and what about the zeta reticuli exchange program; not to mention the stargate

[Chris Peterson]

wait, wasn't Scotty beamed up into space? if so, did the remains (A) reenter, (B) remain in orbit, (C) leave orbit? if (C) then above statement is not correct;

All but a few grams of his ashes were scattered on Earth. The bit that went into space returned, and on the second try, exploded with the rocket in the atmosphere. If anything remains in space, it can be assumed to be orbiting Earth, and therefore is within the field of view.

[FloridaMike]

Ah gees, my eyes were closed....

Also, I am Martian, so why didn’t you mention in the commentary that the image includes Martians?

[emc]

not only can we thank the sun for the earthshine, we can also thank the sun for the moonshine and all those that participated