An Alien's-Eye View of Earth

Earlier this week, the visionaries who operate NASA's Cassini spacecraft released a remarkable snapshot of Earth as seen from Saturn. It got a ton of media attention, and rightly so. It is a stunning celestial view that no human being can see first-hand, but that billions of people around the world can now experience vicariously. It starkly illustrates how small we are within the universe, while simultaneously celebrating the grand things our little species is capable of. I went on cable news to talk about it, and DISCOVER blogger Tom Yulsman wrote a poignant post about it. But that new Cassini image is far from the only perspective-busting picture that has come in from humanity's space fleet. In fact, there is a whole portfolio, many of them rarely seen. Collectively they offer what I call an alien's-eye view of Earth: They show what our planet might look like to extraterrestrial scientist scoping out our planet from afar. Here I've pulled together a few of my favorites. [To follow me on Twitter: @coreyspowell]Earthset on the moon. The Apollo astronauts captured shots of Earth rising on the moon, but this is the only full sequence I know of that shows Earth setting. (Both events occur only from orbit around the moon or from some other mobile vantage. For a stationary observer on the lunar surface, Earth hangs nearly motionless in the sky.) In 2007 Japan's Kaguya spacecraft--also known as Selene--took both still images and HD video of Earth ominously vanishing from view. Earth's south pole is facing up; Australia is at upper left on the globe but turned upside-down because of the orientation. The whole sequence covers about 70 seconds. (Credit: JAXA/NHK)