Amanda Kooser is a New Mexico-based journalist who covers quirky and unusual science stories. She’s explored a mushroom growing on a frog, perfume for dogs and strange rocks on Mars. As a freelance writer, Kooser has delved into gadgets, geek culture, public schools, weird foods, transatlantic travel, broadband and Route 66.
Earth feels like a big place when you’re standing on it. Zoom out to a distant planet, however, and Earth becomes a blue dot. It’s all about perspective. NASA ’s Curiosity Mars rover captured a poignant view of Earth dancing in the sky with the Martian moon Phobos . The result is an ode to Curiosity ’s home planet and the human spirit of exploration. Here’s the inside story about how the picture came about and what it means.
The idea for the photo came about because it had been a while since Curiosity had photographed Earth and the rover was sitting in a scenic spot. The team decided the landscape would make for a nice photo op with Earth up above.—a Curiosity team member and research scientist with the Space Science Institute—fortuitously found a moment when Mars’s funky moon Phobos would be near Earth up in the sky.There was a small window to get it right on Sept. 5.
The Curiosity team shared the image on social media and described Earth as an evening “star.” Space fans reacted with wonder. “To see the Earth, our home, as a star in the sky brings tears of joy and beauty I can’t fully explain,” Lemmon hopes Curiosity’s perspective on Earth, with the Mars landscape and Phobos for scale, will prompt people to think about our world and our place in the universe. “Anyone you’ve ever loved, anyone you’ve ever disagreed with, that’s all us in one spot, that little blob of light,” says Lemmon. “Maybe the disagreements might not seem that important when you look at this tiny little speck in the sky.
Astronomer Carl Sagan was the driving force behind Voyager 1’s pale blue dot image. Sagan and the Voyager team knew Earth would look small from that distance. “This was precisely why Sagan and other members of the Voyager team felt the images were needed—they wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean,”.
Curiosity Mark Lemmon NASA Space Mars Mars Rovers Curiosity Rover Phobos
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