Earth seen from MESSENGER

MESSENGER Earth departure sequence taken after the probe's flyby on August 2, 2005. The Mercury-bound probe made a flyby of our home planet exactly one year after launch.

A sequence of 358 color images spanning 24 hours was assembled into a movie. At the time of first frame MESSENGER was 65,598 kilometers from Earth. This increased to 435,885 kilometers at the time of the last image (August 3, 2005), comparable to what Apollo astronauts saw looking back from the Moon.

The movie was rotated 90 degrees to the right to better fit YouTube format, Earth's north is roughly to the right. The contrast and color are different here than in the officially released video, here it is processed to better match what the human eye would see - an almost painfully bright crescent in pitch black of space.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• messenger
• probe
• earth
• flyby
• movie

[teta809]

is that real?

[ugowar]

@teta809 Yes, it's a time-lapse sequence taken by the probe as it receded from Earth. Images were taken every 4 minutes and this is played at film rate so everything is sped-up.

[Koppurointi]

That space is Dark... Where is all the stars??

[ugowar]

@Koppurointi The Earth is too bright so camera exposure is too short to see start. You don't see stars in broad daylight, do you?

[Koppurointi]

@ugowar You can't believe that?

[ugowar]

@Koppurointi I don't BELIEVE that, I KNOW it's a fact. If you knew ANYTHING about photography or ever actually TRIED to photograph stars during the night with your camera set for daylight you'd understand that.

But hey, realizing that actually requires some logical thinking on the matter so I'm not surprised people are gullible to believe otherwise.

[serjito87]

@VamYang "Remember that in space, there is no such thing as up or down..."

Yeaah sometimes I feel so fool xD but I got it, I really hope someday , Google will surprise us with a "Google Orbit" where we can know exactly wich is our exact position respect to the sun (and other planets), where and how our home is rotating, all in 3D xD" that would be nice !

[mellowmark1]

@bushwhack69

We are a surface nuisance, nothing more. The Earth will kill humans long before humans kill the Earth.

[twibkidx]

Who would dislike EARTH?

[arctree]

What happened to the moon?

[twibkidx]

@monkeymirror Clouds don't move fast enough to be caught by this. Besides, the Earth is rotating, so you don't get the chance to look at a cloud for long enough

[yasu3japan]

wow...

That might be what future astronauts bound for Mars might be looking at. Must be traumatic, so away from home

[VamYang]

@serjito87, you said, "so the earth rotates from up to down? i dont get it :("

Remember that in space, there is no such thing as up or down. It's 3D space, and not flat in a traditional sense where you have north and south. We only say "up" (north) because we are talking in relation to the north pole. People also say "true north" which is in relation to the north star. The picture was probably taken with the shadow of the earth in mind so that it's horizontal to the video.

[monkeymirror]

I disliked it because the clouds don't change. If it's time lapse, shouldn't we see different cloud formations forming?

[yourmaker74]

why are we alive on that floating orb

[serjito87]

so the earth rotates from up to down? i dont get it :(