Dazzling clicks of our home: The Earth

Ever since the cognitive evolution, we, the humans have always been fond of space. In every possible way, we’ve been seeking and analyzing the things out there. Its our curiosity, that leads us to search and study this vast concept called universe. And everything has been done from very small tiny stage in a vast cosmic arena, the Earth.

The process called ‘Selfie’ has evolved in the recent time. This selfie is limited to an individual being but have you ever thought about the selfie of the Earth. Yes, it also limited to an individual but accommodating all of us. In this vastness, for Earth, we all are one, irrespective of illusionery insignificant differences human has made on the surface.

Humans have sent so many missions, both crewed and unmanned(robotic), beyond our planet to explore the neighboring celestial bodies (which we do here on Earth also). Every now and then, these gutsy explorers have glanced home to provide something stunning and thought-provoking images which we could call them selfies. Here are some of the memorable and spectacular images of our only home from space.

1. Earthrise

The iconic image of Earth rising, the first of its kind taken by an astronaut from Lunar orbit, greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts as they orbited far side of the Moon on Dec. 24, 1968. What a splendid rise of Earth when seen from Moon defines the beuty of Earth!

2. Moon crosses Earth

The best combine image of the Earth and the Moon. The far side of the Moon is not visible from Earth. NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera aboard DSCOVR sattelite captured this magnificent view as the Moon moves in front of the sunlit side of Earth.

3. Earth through Saturn rings

NASA’s Cassini probe captured this view of Earth and Moon with Saturn on left. Cassini was 1.4 billion kilometers away from Earth at that time. The Moon is seen just to the right in this image. Its the third time Earth was captured from outer solar system in 2013.

4. Click from Mercury

While on its way to orbit Mercury, the Messenger spacecraft of NASA looked back and took this beautiful photograph. Showing Earth and Moon as small circle of reflected light. Photo taken from 98 million kilometers away from Earth.

5. Earth from Martian surface

Curiosity rover of NASA snapped this photo of Earth from the surface of Mars. The view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken on Jan 31, 2014, 40 min after local sunset. It includes the Earth as brightest point in the night sky. Inset image shows a zoomed view of the Earth and the Moon in image. This could be normal view for future humans as the Mars is about to be our next home.

6. The Family Portrait

The iconic Voyager 1 space probe captured the family photo of whole solar system. It includes Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus in addition to Earth. Mars was obscured by scattered sunlight bouncing on camera, Mercury was too close to the Sun, lost in the glare of sunlight and Pluto was too tiny to be visible. Thats why few of members didn’t seen in the portrait.

7. The “Pale Blue Dot”

This is the most fascinating image of all time. The image gave human an awe-inspiring and unprecedented view of our home world, the Earth! The iconic photograph was taken by Voyager 1 when speeding up to leave solar system from a more than 6 billion kilometers away when operators commanded it to look back towards home for a final time. The probe was so so far away that from its vantage point, that Earth was just a tiny point of 0.12 pixel in size in the centre of scattered light rays (it caused due to taking the picture so close to the Sun).

Carl Sagan, legendary scientist and advisor of this mission, described Earth as “A lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

I’m posting a whole quote of Carl Sagan on Pale blue dot in the image below. I urge everyone to please go through this lines you will definitely feel enlightened, inspiring and overwhelming!