Within the article is a reference to The Planetary Photojournal.

It is an Internet-based system for digitally releasing and storing space science images that was founded by Jurrie Van der Woude, an image coordinator for NASA’s Jet Propulsion’s Laboratory’s Public Affairs Office.

From this compilation of photographs came the Ten Best Space Science Photographs.

Britt article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/top10_images_010925-1.html

Planetary Photojournal: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html  

Please take special interest in the following two photographs within the ten.

Photograph #2 (“Earthrise over the Moon”) was taken by Lunar Orbiter 1, an unmanned (robotic) spacecraft launched by NASA to take photographs of possible landing sites for manned Apollo lunar missions. The historically important photograph taken by the spacecraft in August 1966 was the first ever image of Earth taken away from the planet.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/top10_images_010925-3.html

Photograph # 10 (“Pale Blue Dot”) shows Earth as photographed from the Voyager spacecraft while over four million miles away from the Earth. The spacecraft was the first of its kind to be so far away from Earth and be able to photograph it, if only as a barely visible minuscule speck.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/top10_images_010925-11.html

Within the article, Mr. Britt quoted American astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan (1934-1996), who had commented on the now famous photograph in his 1994 book “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”. Sagan said:

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”

The Earth is about 7,919 miles (12,745 kilometers) in mean diameter and about 24,880 miles (40,040 kilometers) in mean circumference. The Milky Way Galaxy is about 529,100,000,000,000,000 miles (851,400,000,000,000,000 kilometers) in diameter (commonly measured as about 90,000 light-years) and about 1,587,000,000,000,000,000 miles (2,554,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers) in circumference (about 270,000 light-years).

The Milky Way Galaxy is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe. The universe, itself, is believed by cosmologists to be infinite in size.

Since these photographs have been taken, Voyagers 10 and 11 are preparing to leave the neighborhood of the Earth’s solar system and travel into interstellar space—the first human-made objects ever to do so. The Voyager spacecraft are significant ventures for Earthlings. However, the pale blue dot is just an inconsequential point when considered against the realm of the universe.

It makes one think!

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Astronomy  NASA  Physics  Research  Science  William Atkins