The Curiosity rover has yet again done an amazing feat. This time, the rover took a picture of the Earth itself. From the surface of Mars, the Earth appears to be but a dot in the sky. Some editing had to be done to get rid of the cosmic rays disrupting the image, but once that was out of the way, we could finally get a clear image of our home planet.
I am never going to get used to how amazing technology is, nor do I ever want to. We have sent something to Mars, and it sent us back a picture of ourselves! Everyone ever born is in that picture (cause, you know, matter is neither created nor destroyed.) This seems like something so simple, and many of you are probably thinking, "What's the big deal?" The big deal is that we sent an SUV sized machine to the surface of a planet 35 million miles away from ours and it is capable enough to take a picture of us from that distance. That's amazing.
It's also funny, when you think of it, the way Curiosity is viewing Earth is most likely the way we view Mars at night. I'd imagine it looks almost identical, except perhaps you would be able to see the Earth a bit better because our planet is larger than Mars. One day, in the far future, I'm sure kids will step outside on the surface of Mars and see the Earth as we see Mars at night, just like in the image. It's an interesting thought.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/tech/innovation/mars-curiosity-earth-image/index.html
In todays society one can never become to comfortable with technology. Considering, it is vastly advancing by the second.
ReplyDeleteThis is so exciting! I agree with you that technology never ceases to amaze me. I've never seen Mars in our sky, but I'm sure it would be much cooler in reverse.
ReplyDeleteYou probably have. It looks like a regular star, but it shines brighter.
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