Such an inspiring and humbling image. Philosophical crisis beginning in 3 2 1...
NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
41–50 of 97 posts
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#42Shaq here, a MVP and 4 times NBA championships. That dot looks convincingly flat to me, not round.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
My oldest is four and I feel this way about everything . They accidentally ask really tough questions constantly . There's no need to go to space for the tough stuff. This morning: "How to people know there's grass?" I managed to appease her with a crappy explanation of how sight works (just saying "we see it" didn't fly—we were in the car or I wouldn't have tried being so lazy) but hot damn there's a lot going on th…
You could always answer, "How do you know there's you?" Never too early to trigger existential crisis!
She already started asking tough questions about mortality at a disturbingly-young age (like: two). Fortunately she's decided all on her own that reaching old age leads to some kind of reincarnation (she seems certain that at some point after I get old I'll be a kid again and can play with toys and go to school and such, for instance), so her psyche is safe for now. No need to throw any more curveballs her way. We're right on the edge as it is, haha.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#44That tiny little speck in that endless blackness is us. All of the human race living on this tiny rock fighting over who owns which piece of land and whose religion is most peaceful. All the world leaders should be spent to space to understand how insignificant we are and how petty and insignificant our disagreements are.
This comment leaves me in a void state. There's so much emptiness.The density of our population in a metropolitan city, is insignificant when you think of it at the scale of space. I just picture me as one of trillions of rocks going around at an extreme velocity around the Saturn ring. Each rock represents a violent pass of this galaxy. We also know there's a black hole in the center of this galaxy, let alone we hav…
I'm also in awe of the universe, but I come away encouraged. Psalm 8 looks at these same thoughts from a different perspective. We are infinitesimally small, but not unknown.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#45Aka NASA's gentle reminder to clean my monitor. Amazing image.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#46> This image is part of a growing catalogue of "propeller" moons... Continued monitoring of these objects may lead to direct observations of the interaction between a disk of material and embedded moons. Such interactions help scientists understand fundamental principles of how solar systems formed from disks of matter. I urgently need a refresher on astronomy so I can have an intelligent discussion about space with…
I found this lecture series very good, and touching in an approachable way on a lot of current work in astronomy: http://oyc.yale.edu/astronomy/astr-160
Algebra is used, but no heavy math. It's more about the concepts and astronomical/astrophysical viewpoint.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#47This may be a silly question, but where are all of the stars? This image is amazing! I love that you can even see the moon. When I saw this I thought, if I can see the earth and its moon clearly from Saturn, then I should be able to see Saturn and her moons from Earth (then I remembered all of the stars, and how hard it would be to make that out in the night sky).
Most cameras only have a range of brightness they can pickup. The rings of Saturn and the Earth are very bright compared to the background stars.
The camera is set to let only a little light in, perhaps by having a shorter exposure or something similar. Not enough light comes in to make out the stars but the brighter objects come through clearly.
If they more light, even to see the stars then the brighter objects would appears whitewashed with brightness and may even otherwise interfere with the photo.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#48That tiny little speck in that endless blackness is us. All of the human race living on this tiny rock fighting over who owns which piece of land and whose religion is most peaceful. All the world leaders should be spent to space to understand how insignificant we are and how petty and insignificant our disagreements are.
I think you're right in that everyone should be aware of the scale of the universe. But importance seems to be fractal in the way that electrons are important to protons, salty and sweet food is important to me, stars to planets, galaxies to universes and so on. We are important, to ourselves. And I think that's OK.
The analogy with fractals is beautiful, and quite illuminating IMO.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#49That tiny little speck in that endless blackness is us. All of the human race living on this tiny rock fighting over who owns which piece of land and whose religion is most peaceful. All the world leaders should be spent to space to understand how insignificant we are and how petty and insignificant our disagreements are.
This comment leaves me in a void state. There's so much emptiness.The density of our population in a metropolitan city, is insignificant when you think of it at the scale of space. I just picture me as one of trillions of rocks going around at an extreme velocity around the Saturn ring. Each rock represents a violent pass of this galaxy. We also know there's a black hole in the center of this galaxy, let alone we hav…
The way I see it, it's all meaningless, so live it up and enjoy it while you can! Be kind to others on your way out.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent observation. Most critical? Maybe not. But it is undoubtedly very much a significant and underrecognized factor. The Overview Effect is a real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
I've always thought the Overview Effect is a cognitive error, but it has this cloud of piety surrounding it "because astronauts". At its best, it inspires calls to environmentalism (the fragility of the Earth), but at its worst, and it's usually at its worst, it inspires nihilistic Carl Saganisms like the Pale Blue Dot.
How is Pale Blue Dot in any way nihilistic? I feel like you missed the point of the entire thing if the message you got was one of hopelessness.