youarehere.jpg

Above: the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. Photographed by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004).

Earth From Mars (flickr / NASA)

  • murrayhenson

    Awesome. I only hope I live to see a person walk on Mars.

  • insatiableatheist

    An inconspicuous point of light
    against the bastion
    and citadel of the stars.
    (Carl Sagan).

    These are the true miracles of our times

  • Anonymous

    Hey… so that our earth is very very small and we are small too. Thus we can’t reach the end of the universe…
    so… if we can reach the end of the universe…
    what things can be exist out of the universe… wow..very
    interested….

  • ian71

    Well that’s sorta how Mars looks from where we all are, so that’s really not all that surprising.

    • Anonymous

      Awe: ur doin it wrong.

    • Anonymous

      Except that, like Venus and Mercury, you’d only be able to see it at dawn or dusk. And because it would be a crescent shape, it wouldn’t be nearly as bright.

  • dainel

    Cause it isn’t one. It’s a “this box is an enlargement of this area here” arrow.

  • Anonymous

    I really like it, very intersting….

  • MrJM

    Hu-Mans!

    clap clap

    Hu-Mans!

    clap clap

    Hu-Mans!

    clap clap

    Suck on that, Martians!

  • WaylonWillie

    Nice post–there is something powerful about looking at that little spot.

  • Anonymous

    I wonder – on a real clear night, could you see the Moon also?

    • Anonymous

      on a real clear night, could you see the Moon also?

      Well, maybe, but the Moon isn’t nearly as bright as the Earth. The Moon looks “white” in our sky because there’s no brighter reflective disk up there to compare it to, but as an object it is actually dark gray.

      http://www.planetary.org/image/PIA00013.jpg

      This should really be obvious from well-known photos

      http://www.planetary.org/image/earthrise__AS11-44-6552.jpg

      but psychologically people are resistant to the idea.

      On top of that, it’s much smaller than the Earth.

  • Shelby Davis

    That is awesome! Reminds me of the fact that not all the exciting stuff happened for my parents’ generation.

    (Yeah, genetics and computers and LHCs are exciting too, but you know what I mean.)

  • Anonymous

    Spirit news!! We miss you, Spirit!

    When the news broke that NASA would stop trying to free Spirit from its thick, soupy grave, I made http://WheresSpirit.info as a simple “mock-u-morial”. It was sort of a joke at the time… but what an impressive image this is. Quite moving.

    Spirit, you will be missed indeed.

  • Poochie
  • TimDrew

    Awesome. Simply awesome.

    And I look forward to the day that “You are Here” arrow reaches the bottom of the image…

  • Anonymous

    Why is the “you are here” arrow pointing the wrong way?

  • Spikeles

    This post wouldn’t be complete with a reference to the Pale blue dot

  • Anonymous

    VERY cool…

  • Kerov

    I so love this picture.

    Yeah, it’s old. But it’s classic.

  • JonStewartMill

    “that URL is invalid and cannot be loaded.”

  • Daedalus

    …so far away. Looks cold out there. Gonna bake some cookies for our robot buddies in the sky.

  • Phlip

    Cue XKCD’s Spirit Rover looking at it homesickly…

    • Felton

      Text message accompanying the photo: “Hey guys! When R U coming 2 get me?”

  • Elite Hacker

    Pure awesome/win.

  • Anonymous

    Anyone know where to find the original without the annotation and inset enlargement.