A Look at the Planet… Earth!

As backyard stargazers, we spend our time looking up and out towards towards other planets and celestial sights.  But today,  we have something different… a peek at our own planet from deep space, taken by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.  As the saying goes, “You are in this picture”!

Here’s the image taken on May 6 of this year, when MESSENGER was 183 million kilometers from the Earth.  The two bright specks in the lower left are the Earth and Moon.  Pretty cool, yes?

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

MESSENGER acquired this image as it was searching for “vulcanoids”, which are small rocky objects which may lurk between Mercury and the Sun.  None have been found, but the craft is well positioned to look for these faint objects when it passes close to the Sun.

That’s it for today.  If you can, get out and do a little stargazing this weekend.  It will make you feel good.