You Are There, Somewhere

views of Earth from Cassini (left) and Messenger NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute and NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

On July 19, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took a picture of Earth from its vantage point near Saturn 900 million miles away. A couple of days later, the spacecraft Messenger, orbiting Mercury, also took pictures of us (see "The Bigger Picture": http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-bigger-picture.html). "Cassini's picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space," said Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker, "and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth" (story, slideshow): http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-229&cid=release_2013-229