NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took photographs of Earth from above Saturn on Friday 19 July 2013. The planet is seen from 1,4 billion kilometres away and shows Earth as a dot in space.

This is an extract from Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”:

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.

The spacecraft was in orbit for the first time in nine years. And, if at any stage in your life you decided to star gaze, chances are that the spacecraft photographed you. With the spacecraft being in orbit many came out to take part in the event “The Day that the Earth Smiled”.

The view of Earth from 1,4 billion km away.

[Source: Fox News]