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Earth seen from 4 billion miles away

futilitycloset.com — That's here. That's home. That's us.

Bury

smokie72 1 year 190 days ago, made popular 1 year 189 days ago

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rjpaez, on 10/12/2007, -14/+74I think I see my house from here...
- Bean945, on 10/12/2007, -11/+36I can see myself looking at this photo from there....
- GoBack2Europe, on 10/12/2007, -43/+10omg, i see kevin rose's mansion O_O/
- markthegoth, on 10/12/2007, -5/+126"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that evolving,
  Revolving at 900 miles an hour.
  It's orbiting at 19 miles a second,
  So it's reckoned,
  A sun that is the source of all our power.
  
  The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see,
  Are moving at a million miles a day,
  In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
  Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
  
  Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars,
  It's 100,000 light years side to side,
  It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick,
  But out by us it's just 3,000 light years wide.
  
  We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point,
  We go around every 200 million years,
  And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,
  In this amazing and expanding universe..."
- Chuckysly, on 10/12/2007, -18/+33I can see Uranus from there.
- ybisme, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16thats really awe inspiring and thought provoking...
- EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+78You must be using Google Earth 5 Beta
- embraboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
  Because there's b*gger all down here on Earth
- DrDigg, on 10/12/2007, -4/+42Dammit my eyes were closed
- BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4Revolving at 900 miles per hour? Depends on where you're standing.
- kyledavis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@BobbyOnions
  
  The *earth* is revolving at the same speed no matter where you're standing. You, on the other hand, could move at different speeds depending where you're standing. See how that works?
- ChillHomie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16This was on the front page last week, but with the photo turned on its side...
- Cleanlyness, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4this is a DUPE BURY
- wintermute0, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2It really is.
- PDelahanty, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16That photo was taken in 1990. I bet that was before most of the annoying Digg users were born.
  
  What a great time it was back then...
- brockpetrie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Carl Sagan was ***** awesome.
- jsballardx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Cameron: I think I can see my dad from up here.
  Ferris: This is the tallest building in the world.
  Cameron: ...Son of a bitch is down there somewhere
- WileEPeyote, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0 Cleanlyness Said: "this is a DUPE BURY"
  
  Every once in a while we need to be reminded...
- LAMinator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can see myself reposting this damn picture again.
- kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know why BobbyOnions got dugg down, perhaps its because people are ignorant as to what angular velocity is.
  
  The 900 miles an hour, is supposed to represent intantaneous tangential radial velocity at the equator(though I thought it was 1000MPH). The tangential velocity at the geographic pole is zero MPH.
  
  Now the Earth's angular velocity is always the same(ignoring the gradual slowing due to graitational waves). Its angular velocity is one turn per day. Or one turn per 24 hours.
kickinass, on 10/12/2007, -2/+55pretty amazing how insignificant our little world is in comparison to the rest of the universe.
- shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -1/+83it makes it more difficult for the aliens to find us, security through obscurity....
  
  now i'm off to lobby congress to put a stop to radio signals...
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26Think universally, act galactically.
- waltwalt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I think the rest of the universe is just as insignificant as we are on a cosmic scale.
  
  But considering we have the only planet (as far as we can tell) with not one but billions of species on it, I would say we are MORE significant than the rest of the dust in the 'sunbeam.'
  
  -w
- kelway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Then he said to Jodie Foster, "That's the way it's been for billions of years."
- spdorsey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4waltwalt:
  
  I agree - but we are only significant to us. No one else knows about us (that we know of), so what does significance matter if you are only significant to yourself?
  
  If you are alone in the woods and you yell, then why did you yell - no one heard you. . .
  
  Just a thought.
  -----S
- ggoyal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I had similar feelings of insignificance when I browsed through the atlas of the universe:
  http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html
- CCB0x45, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does Dawkins think we are significant... or have a point to life? I've always wondered this.
- joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ggoyal
  That's cool. Shame it's not a 3D viewer.
  Don't show that to some religous types though, we would never hear the end of it. From that it looks like we ARE the centre of the universe.
hotbeefman, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7Props on the Sagan quote smokie.
- marc26uk, on 10/12/2007, -16/+1Didn't even know Sagan was an astronomer, just assumed he was an anthropologist
- illt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4just a pale blue dot.
bossmanthe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Feeling pretty insignificant...
- floridiot2, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Now who didn't think it was going to be a little dot..
- spdorsey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8We should feel insignificant. We are.
  
  But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy ourselves and bask in our insignificance.
  
  --S
JuyLe, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1It's not the Earth, it's my house bebeh.
MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38not pictued - Xenu's craft
- mlw4428, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0@falcon
  
  No it wasn't...
OpenFuture, on 10/12/2007, -27/+8Pic or it didnt happen
- falcon1, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4Oh come on now. Dont digg him down...thats kind of funny...I guess...
- OpenFuture, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5/Sarcasm
ingoldsby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30Makes you realize how stupid we are as a race to wage all of these wars, and strip our planet of its resources without much thought to what we will do when they are gone. We don't have anywhere else to go, and this picture really makes you realize just how small this planet is.
- DooDooFace, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Actually, it shows how many places there are to go. So make a mess and don't worry about it.
- fartingbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you zoom out far enough anything looks small. Whats more important is size relative to us, in which case this world is plenty big enough.
- froman98, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3It's funny to hear people say about how stupid we are for stripping natural resources and such as they type that comment in on their computer that was manufactured with some of the natural resources that were stripped from this planet. It's like complaining about killing animals for their fur/hide and then sitting in your car with leather seats.
- aristotle0dude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@froman98: At least I dugg you up. These hypocrites are oblivious to how much they depend on those resources not just for their computers but the cars they drive and the other appliances in their homes.
dragonbladev, on 10/12/2007, -55/+1and how again did they get this shot?
- fivestarsoul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43I really hate to be a prick, but... did you even read the first line of the ***** article?
  
  "Earth seen from 4 billion miles away, photographed by Voyager 1 on June 6, 1990."
  
  I'll narrow it down more:
  
  "...photographed by Voyager 1 on June 6, 1990."
  
  Sorry, I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.
- tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13so... C = 186282 miles/second
  
  4billion/186k = 21472 seconds for a signal to reach earth travelling at light speed
  = 357 minutes
  = about 6 hours max speed
  
  geez, and i thought my 2400 baud modem was slow to download one porno pic when i was little. 30 whole minutes.
- sakuraz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I hope if it's science related....we use SI units...
- marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -10/+22Americans! Say after me: METER... METER.
- rsdouglas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Metre, I think you'll find :P
- killerofkiller, on 10/12/2007, -2/+53.0 e8 m/s FTW
- duality, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@marnaq
  
  Okay, I propose the following alternate article title, just for you: "Earth seen from 6.436 billion kilometers away."
  
  1 mile = 1.609 km. It's not exactly a tough conversion.
- jhshukla, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1299792458 m/s
- superpotential, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2@marnag
  
  METRE.
piratesarefun, on 10/12/2007, -16/+47looks pretty small from way out there...
kinda makes you wonder...

will it blend?
- Mihai12345, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32"but will it blend" "but will it blend" "but will it blend"
  AAAAAAA I'm going crazy !!!!!!!!
- spdorsey, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Bwaahahahhaaaaaaa!
  
  Too funny.
tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+51What is this? A planet for ants? How can we be expected to teach people to learn how to read... if they can't even fit inside the planet?

The Earth has to be at least... three times bigger than this!
- scratt, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1lol - Nice quote. dude.
- tireoghainabu, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4And a digg for the zoolander quote methinks....
Filcho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9It was made by a guy, who slipped and dropped off the edge of the world. he made the shot and then sent it through bluetooth.

Does anybody see the big turtle and the four elephants upon it?
- texpundit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nope...but if you squint, you can see Atlas.
  
  He shrugged, y'know?
seiha, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1dupe
scratt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Soon to be a much brighter dot for a very brief period of time, if our current world leaders continue to do the job they are doing now...
djhaloeight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Always amazes me when I see stuff like this....we're so wrapped up in our petty little lives and worried about stuff that, in the BIG picture, means NOTHING at all.
Kakcoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6http://digg.com/space/Picture_of_Earth_from_Deep_Space

Not exactly the same picture, but its from the same spacecraft at about the same distance.
- cuoops, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks, I thought this was familiar
- e144539, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Same picture, its just rotated and a little darker.
michaelbeckham, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Thats corny, thats annoying, thats a fact.
brianmcuasito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i didn't realize we had something four billions miles away.. how did we get it there? is that like a really big tank of rocket fuel or does the whole no gravity thing take care of it?
- falcon1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19We strapped a big ole rocket to some electronics, lit the fuse, and the darn things still haulin' arse through the universe :)
- tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9hamsters
- sergiolopes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@brian
  
  I'll let Sir Isaac Newton explain it himself :)
  "A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion continues to move in a straight line with a constant speed unless and until an external unbalanced force acts upon it."
- marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Exactly, the "whole no gravity thing" takes good care of it. Newton would cry if he heard you saying that tho.
- texpundit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You make baby Newton cry.
eliburford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Looks like some lines + noise to me :D
- lazlonger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4kind of like your comment..... ;)
johnwc723, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I like the title of the page "futility closet", so true though. It definitely puts us into perspective in the grand scheme of things, go to church if you want to feel important....
Migdilio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That is one of the most frightening photos I have ever seen.
- Gizzmo0411, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Isn't it though? It makes you really wonder about the purpose of it all...
- xutopia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Why is there a need for a purpose? Can't we just be? Can't we create our own purpose?
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What did people think before they saw this picture? Why is it so surprising and profound that Earth is tiny compared to Space? Didn't anybody here take science class yet? Are the majority of diggers even younger than most people think? So many questions!
LordSkywalker, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Talk about old news. Some people on Digg weren't even born when this picture was taken.
kb0x, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Looks quite big, considering.
- LegendarySock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1considering what?
beaumont911, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why does Earth stand out so much compared to other planets?
- STKD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2An amazing piece of timing, basically. Sunlight in *just* the right place.
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Stand out in what way?
gincarnated, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I would have dugg the story if it was just Carl Sagan's quote.
Quake120, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8We mean absolutely nothing to the universe. The earth is a tiny speck in infinity. The earth could disappear right now and it wouldn't affect the universe at all.
We will never explore more than 1 hundred trillionth of it (if that) in the history of the human species because we are too damn busy blowing each other apart and fighting over things that really do not matter at all.
- CraigB12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well sinse "god" created us all 6000 years ago, we've still got a lot to learn about not fighting.
  
  sarcasm
dolphumous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19I'm in ur galaxy...watching your planet.
spasms, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Oh yes, we are truly insignificant. And of course, looking the other way, we get a great story and image like this:
http://paralleldivergence.com/2006/11/11/how-hubble-killed-god/
- Tagaiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that just killed god for me. and i dont really mind.
Hegemony, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0lTO4GB8sw

Cartoons were soooooo much better when I was a kid. What cartoons today give kids info about cosmology that many adults don't know?
- SydeffeX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was thinking the same thing! thanks for posting that.
PretLetters, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I actually got a little emotional over this picture. Aren't we the lucky ones. All that vast 'nothingness' and than that little speck with life. Cute, vulnerable. I love us.
- philz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I love us"
  Golum couldn't possibly put it any better.
- resplence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I loves us", possibly.
mogwaifearsatan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I liked this even better the second time it was posted.
robbo11a, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Pretty hard getting my head 'round all that space, and just us so far in it. We miss you Carl.
philz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For a moment I though - "hey cool, and whats that planet just next to us?" Then I cleaned my monitor. :-(
AstralSin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2wasnt this on digg last week?
- michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yes it was.
- lazlonger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah. lazy ass posters steal things from digg, relink them to their self absorbed mom-pleasing little blog, and then resubmit them to digg. it's embarrassing.
  
  the picture and the quote however trump this evolutionary cul de sac's manipulation. one of the most beautiful paragraphs in science and philosophy.
Zaggynl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ PretLetters
I digg your positive style man.
inquebiss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That was deep
Trax78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We're the most significant of all the dust and dirt you would see on that photo actually but not too sure about the entire galaxy.
Cenobite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This was interesting the first 37 times. No really, it was.
malcolmreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0So how did this Voyager satelite get out far enough to take this picture? Must have been one big-ass rocket.....

I like this picture. It just really shows that we're all just objects.........objects in space.

Awesome firefly quote, eh?
Cirrius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0That's a Digg. From a few weeks ago. But the pic is sideways.
ArsenicTea, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Anyone else reminded of Douglas Adam's Total Perspective Vortex? A torture device that just puts the universe in perspective for you, just by showing you the whole universe and a "you are here" dot.
Player181, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Carl Sagan was awesome.
colbysvg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Amazing how far technology has come huh? Before, they would have been amazed if someone managed to launch a ship into the atmoshpere at zero G's, now were taking pictures 4 billion miles away from earth. I wonder who took it...
GreyFox422, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If we are hitchhiking the galaxy and that is the "You are Here" map, we are screwed.
silentdud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This sort of reminds me of that movie scene where the professor is smoking pot with two of his students and he's like "We are all just a spec of dust on God's finger nail." And everyone nods.
tralalaa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Stop posting the same ***** stories.

kthxbye.

And before you ***** whine, "but I haven't seen it yet!!" - L2Rss

...then maybe you'll realize that 20% of stories on digg are dupes.
SSCrow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That detail is astounding.
Google Earth should be this clear.
Thezeppelin62, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If you look realllly closely you can see me.
- bethebryant, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1If you look really close you can see my dick.
deathdefyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2why does someone post this crap once a month at least???
- wintermute0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So another 1500 people can ooh and ahh and wax existential and pretend they're deep.
gojeda, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4BURIED - this has been on digg at least a half dozen times.

CUT THE *****.
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Saw it last week, same comments too.
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Earth seen from 4 billion miles away

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