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Birthday · July 23, 2013

Two Views of Earth

July 23, 2013

In the time it took you to read this, the Earth moved another thousand miles through space. You are not standing still. You never have been.

Two Views of Earth

A little universe, just for you

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APOD published July 23, 2013. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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Two Views of Earth

Original APOD · July 23, 2013

In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting the gas giant. Pictured on the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against a dark background, as captured by the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft now orbiting Mercury. In the MESSENGER image, the Earth (left) and Moon (right) shine brightly with reflected sunlight. MESSENGER took the overexposed image last Friday as part of a search for small natural satellites of the innermost planet, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. During this same day, humans across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn.

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