Posted by Ray Katz in NASA, moon
That Earth-moon photo
I know I’m supposed to be excited about the new solar system discovered by NASA’s Kepler telescope—and I am—but I can’t seem to get my mind off of that other photo.
It’s the Earth and our moon, from 114 million miles away. That’s a little further than the distance from our planet is (on average) to the Sun. The photo was taken by MESSENGER, a spacecraft that’s on route to an orbital mission around Mercury.
Like the famous Apollo 8 photo, which showed how beautiful and fragile our planet it, this photo from MESSENGER tells a story. I don’t think it shows us as insignificant…but we do look very small. And, in comparison to our solar system, our galaxy and our universe, we ARE small.
What also strikes me is how extremely close to the Earth the moon looks. It’s a mere meteorite’s throw away. We’ve been there. Why are we having such difficulty getting back? I mean, the moon is only the first step. I’ve been waiting more than 40 years for the next step.
That's us (and the moon) near the lower left corner.
