A look back at Earth

[kiltedrennie]

Looks very much like a pale blue dot to me ;-)

[MacGumerait]

Couldn't resist a Photo-bomb...

Attachment 16732

Well , it's totally expected that a Scot lands on Mars ! If you need some help getting home , give me call .... if you can get a cell signal . Me and the boys will figure out a way to come get you .

[be da veva]

John's good question: what were you playing?

They are called bagpipes....

[Barb T]

Barb: You don't happen to have the audio associated with that picture, do you? We would love to hear it! It's not "Mathair to Bairns" is it?

No, no audio. If I remember right, I was playing Bathgate Highland Gathering and Pipe Major Donald MacLean of Lewis. I honestly don't remember what I was playing as they actually came up the hill. It was so hot out that day that I was playing little bits off of a bunch of different stuff off and on for awhile as they were getting ready to come up the hill so that my pipes wouldn't go screaming out of tune in the hot sun.

[Teufel Hunden]

The scale of such a simple pic is something to boggle the mind....

This is literally a photograph of our planet taken by a nuclear powered remote control car, on the surface of another planet. What a thing it is.

[Deirachel]

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. 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. 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.

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. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

[unixken]

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. 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. 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.

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. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

And not one of them had an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

[TheOfficialBren]

They are called bagpipes....

Zing!




Edited to add:

In all sriousness, this image of our tiny blue marble is so humbling that it renders our loftiest notions as childish goo-gooing. I am of the opinion that without a doubt more advanced civilisations exist out there. They are simply uninterested in our minor bipedal species as anything but a roadside attraction, like the worlds largest ball of string--you drive by it, silently make a mental note of the amusing sight, and get on with your day all while not even leaving the car.

[Marshall]

Thanks, Barb for both photos. Great stuff!

[GrainReaper]

I totally saw you!

You should have put something on, at least a kilt.... Or a towel!