Taking a Different Look at the Earth

Post # 83 

      The Cassini spacecraft has been sending us pictures since the late 1990's.  It sent some great close up pictures of asteroids early on in its photographic career.  Then it took some great pics of Jupiter's moons.  Now some fifteen years later, it is back at it again.  
      The Cassini has finally reached Saturn.  It's flying in close and taking pictures of Saturn's many moons.  It will also be looking at the field of small rocks and other debris that encircle Saturn as a belt, otherwise known and recognized as its rings. 
      While they were at it though, the Cassini looked homeward.  It took some pictures of the Earth.  In the pictures we can clearly see both the Earth and the Moon - as very tiny specks.  The earth should look small from that far away.  It is 900 million miles away from its home. 

                         This is an enhanced view.  NASA hasn't cleaned up any of the images yet  

      Not to be out done, the Messenger spacecraft took pictures of the Earth too.  Messenger is presently orbiting Mercury, and sent us pictures from the opposite direction.  Mercury is only a "mere" 61 million miles away.  That's not exactly a walk to the local convenience store, but compared to the 900,000,000 miles to Saturn, it's almost close.  It's all relative.