Astronomy Picture of the Day - Interplanetary Earth

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-23 21:07:12 | Updated at 2024-11-23 23:58:36 2 hours ago

Astronomy Picture of the Day - Interplanetary Earth
NASA ^ | 23 Nov, 2024 | Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA & NASA / JHU Applied Physics Lab / Carnegie

Posted on 11/23/2024 1:03:53 PM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft, then in Mercury orbit. MESSENGER took its image as part of a search for small natural satellites of Mercury, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. In the MESSENGER image, the brighter Earth and Moon are both overexposed and shine brightly with reflected sunlight. Destined not to return to their home world, both Cassini and MESSENGER have since retired from their missions of Solar System exploration.

TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 11/23/2024 1:03:53 PM PST by MtnClimber

To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 11/23/2024 1:04:14 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)

To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; Agatsu77; ...

Pinging the APOD list

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3 posted on 11/23/2024 1:05:10 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)

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