Astronomy Domine, or, "Hello, 'tis us"

[Tiassa]

I'm having one of those reflective moments. Right now I'm in love with this picture:

Sure, the exaggerated colors give the picture an unnatural feel, but it's rather hard to make an artistic critique of a picture taken by a robot hurtling through empty space over a million miles from the object and a billion miles from home.

Home. That's why I love this picture.

Look to the left of the planet, just inside the G ring. There's a tiny dot right near the ten o'clock position.

Home.

That's Earth.

This is among a set of images that are the first color pictures taken of Earth from the outer solar system since Voyager 1 looked homeward nineteen years ago.

Say "Hi". We're a billion miles away in this picture. That's so damn cool.

The brief explanation of this image is available from APOD. A longer caption, as well as the full-resolution version in JPG and TIFF formats, is available from JPL.

I am in awe of the Cassini Imaging Team.