But astronauts would beg and even plead to differ. And how that play turns out is up to us. Humanity has recorded photos of Earth from hundreds, thousands, millions, and even billions of miles away. The pictures help scientists study our dynamic world and understand what a habitable planet looks like from afar — a critical part of the search for alien worlds. Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist and popularizer of science, was born on November 9, He died on December 20, , two years after he famously juxtaposed human history as a bloody struggle upon a mote of cosmic dust in his book " Pale Blue Dot.
In honor of Sagan, take a moment to ponder these 27 arresting images of Earth that humankind has captured from outer space. You can see the Joalane tropical cyclone in the Indian Ocean top right. GOES launched on November 19, , and orbits about 22, miles 35, kilometers above Earth — a position called geostationary orbit. This allows the satellite to stay above the same spot and monitor changes in the atmosphere, ground, and ocean over time.
The spacecraft regularly sees the moon and uses it to calibrate cameras. This allowed it to take 13 images of the moon's shadow as it raced across Earth during the total solar eclipse of Together they make up one of the most complete views ever of the event.
On its way, it took this photo of Earth that shows the South Pole and Antarctica illuminated by the sun. The crew of the last crewed lunar mission, Apollo 17, took this " blue marble" photo of Earth — one of the most-reproduced images in history , though no one is certain which astronaut took it — from 28, miles away on their trip to the moon.
Africa is visible at the top left of the image, and Antarctica on the bottom. This series of images was taken between p. During a broadcast with Earth, Lovell said: "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. Launched by NASA in , LRO normally stares down at the cratered surface of the moon — but took a moment to snap this modern-day "Earthrise" composite photo.
Lunar Orbiter 1 took this photo while scouting for places astronauts could land on the moon. Because s technology couldn't access the full depth of image data that NASA had recorded on analog tapes, however, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project recently recovered this version of the famous image. The full-size version is large enough to print as a billboard.
The "Eagle" lunar module of Apollo 11 as it returns from the surface of the moon. A rare view of the far side of the moon, taken by the China National Space Administration's lunar probe. Its next moon mission: to return a lunar soil sample. If it succeeds, it will be the first collected since the last Apollo missions in the s. The astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan took this video during Apollo 10 , the second crewed mission to the moon — essentially a dry run for Apollo 11 without the landing.
Because the same side of the moon always faces our planet, such "Earthrise" views only happen when a spacecraft is moving. Before spinning wildly out of control on May 7, , it took this composite photo of Earth, as seen across the northern pole of the moon. In May, China launched two small microsatellites, called Longjiang-1 and Longjiang-2, into orbit around the moon. One of the spacecraft took a stunning photo of Earth and the moon using a Saudi Arabian camera system.
The microsatellites were part of a mission to launch a lunar relay satellite called Queqiao, which China will use to communicate with a rover that may be the first to explore the moon's far side. A combination of two photos one of Earth and one of the moon taken by NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft, which journeyed to Mercury, Venus, and the moon after launching from a repurposed Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The moon, which is about one-third as bright as Earth, is closer to the viewer in the foreground.
The image of Jupiter was one of those challenges. When the Cassini photographed the planet in January , it used red and blue filters, but no green ones. That meant that Benson had to mix the red and blue to create a synthetic green frame for the final composite image.
For the photo of Uranus, he used data collected by Voyager 2. The spacecraft only had enough time to capture half the rings in high resolution, so Benson cloned the rest in Photoshop. The process took four days, not including the extra hours he spent tweaking color and contrast to get the final image just right. What you see in the end is a photo as close to Uranus as the data allows.
Benson hopes the images convey a sense of wonder, and shows the role artists can play within a field typically dominated by scientists and astronomers. Contributor Instagram. By signing up through this link , Futurism. But what do they see when they look at the Milky Way? Share This Article. More on Hard Science. New Moon Just Dro Mystery Meat. Yesterday on futurism. Keep up. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to keep in touch with the subjects shaping our future. Topics About Us Contact Us.
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