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Some Perspective On Ourselves: NASA Photo Shows Earth From Saturn
July 23, 2013
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Earth as viewed from Saturn (Photo: NASA/JPL/SSI/Val Klavens)

Humans used to think of our planet as the centre of the universe. But that was before we had pictures like this.

This shot of our little planet was taken on July 19 from 898 million miles away by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

It's actually pretty rare that a spacecraft is able to turn back and look at Earth from the far reaches of the solar system, since they can risk damaging their instruments by exposing them to direct sunlight, The Globe and Mail reports.

In this case, the sun was temporarily blocked relative to Cassini's position, allowing NASA to take the shot.

The image was processed and composited from raw data sent by the spacecraft.

Val Klavens, the social media leader for the 'In Saturn's Rings' film project, took raw images sent back by Cassini and combined and cleaned them up to create the photo at the top of the post.

To see some more stunning images from Cassini - these ones converted into seamless high-definition animation - check out the 'In Saturn's Rings' trailer below:

Via Universe Today

Related:

Photo Of The Day: Five of Saturn's Moons

NASA's New Mega-Rocket To Mars

Earth From Above

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