Earth from 31 million miles
Movie shows alien's-eye view of Earth and Moon
Excerpt:
The two brief sequences show the Moon passing in front of the Earth as it orbits.
"Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us," said University of Maryland astronomer Michael A'Hearn, who leads the project using NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft.
"Our video shows some specific features that are important for observations of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars," added Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
"A 'sun glint' can be seen in the movie, caused by light reflected from Earth's oceans, and similar glints to be observed from extrasolar planets could indicate alien oceans," Deming added.
Comment: Very very cool. More links below:
NASA's Deep Impact Films Earth as an Alien World
Movie 1
Movie 2
Very cool. The most spectacular thing I have ever seen was Saturn through Lowell Observatory's telescope. It kindof puts things into perspective when viewing something like that. The planets and stars all seem fairy tale like until you see them. I have a photo of a star on facebook. It has a tail 13 light years long. To put that into perspective (if you can even fathom this) it would be 20,000 times the distance of Pluto to the Sun.
ReplyDelete