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Comments (253)

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  hannesfur
  Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019...), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...
• Vincsenzo
  What is that bright star like object on the bottom right? Is it Venus? I’m guessing it’s Venus because it’s much brighter than a star would be.
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  Sharlin
  I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!
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  susam
  Much higher quality images are available on the NASA Image Library:Dark Side of the Earth: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e000193/Hello World: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/fd02_for-pao/On images-assets.nasa.gov, we can find the 5567x3712 resolution versions of these pictures:Dark Side of the Earth: https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e000193/art002e00...Hello World: https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e000192/art002e00...
• tacostakohashi
  There's something a bit weird having these digital photos and crisp digital audio and video of the astronauts, and seeing pictures of mission control with flat screens after having grown up on grainy analogue video, crackly audio with lots of beeps, and mission control being choc full of CRTs being watch by men in short sleeve shirts with black ties and cigarettes.
• nntwozz
  For anyone not understanding the high ISO please have a look at this recent video by minutephysics.Do you understand ISO?It took me 21 years...https://youtu.be/ZWSvHBG7X0wThis video explains how ISO is very different to what most people imagine, and how you can use this knowledge to take less noisy photos.
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  picafrost
  This is all we've got. We need to do a better job of preserving it.
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  MrGilbert
  I love the fact that you can see the aurora at both poles!
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  ge96
  Why 'spectacular' the quotesI'm sad not alive at a time like Cowboy Bebop oh well, this is a great pic, overview effect
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  firefoxd
  Fun question: What time was this taken?The exif includes time, but not time zone. They are not quite at the moon, and Lunar Time is under active development but not official. Also clocks tick slower under the moon's weaker gravity. (Or is it faster?)Anyway, what time was this taken?
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  thenthenthen
  If you are interested in taking similar images, there are several satellites transmitting ‘full disk’ images like this, instead of a camera you need a dish or yagi a sdr and lna. Example satellites are Himawari 8, GOES 18, Fengyun 2H.
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  1zael
  How are people still flat-earthers after stuff like this
• Helmut10001
  The comparison pictures look like there is more dust in the air today. They don't explain this effect, so I assume it is related to time of day the photo was taken, or camera settings, not actual dust accumulation compared to 1972. However, the direct comparison gives the impression they want people to interpret like the air is getting dirtier?
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  evolve2k
  Comparing the final two images of taken of earth in 1972 and 2026 respectively; does the 2026 (left) image look murkier and less crisp to anyone else?Surely our camera gear is exponentially better now? Is the reason for the new image being ‘murkier’ due to light, pollution or something else?
• sph
  It really just is a blue marble floating in nothingness.
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  sensanaty
  It really is crazy when you think about it, we're capable of taking a picture of the planet we live on from outer space. We take it for granted, that we know what it all looks like. I often find myself wondering how ancient peoples before us would react to something like this
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  whycombinetor
  "It is the first time since 1972 that humans have travelled outside of the Earth's orbit." But they're not tho (Earth's gravitational dominance extends 4x the distance to the moon)
• trimethylpurine
  >The burn took the Orion spacecraft out of Earth orbit...No it didn't. That would be catastrophic and likely fatal. They are going to the Moon, which is also in Earth orbit.
• steve-atx-7600
  To paraphrase Carl Sagan: insignificant plant in an insignificant galaxy and there’s a good chance we’ll annihilate ourselves.
• 14
  I often think about what an amazing time it is to be alive and how amazing all the tech we have at our fingertips is. But I am also incredibly saddened by the fact that I was probably born just shy of routine space travel. I can not even imagine how amazing it would be to look down on earth and see it in its entirety. Hopefully my kids or my grandkids will be able to achieve my dream and do exactly that.
• consumer451
  Man, this is truly awesome. I wonder if NASA's Don Pettit, u/astro_pettit [0] consults on all missions going forward. He really should.He is "our people," as far as hacking astrophotography from space. [1][0] https://old.reddit.com/user/astro_pettit[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42701645
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  rvnx
  How come the pictures have such bad quality ? Is it a bandwidth issue ? Or there are really constraints that are not so obvious ?Because fundamentally it is a large object illuminated by sunlight.
• deepsun
  Where are the turtles?
• rav3ndust
  to quote the old meme:> hey, i'm in a picture with all my friends!
• longislandguido
  > The image, titled Hello, WorldA new hello.jpg?
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  joebig
  https://artemis-tracker.netlify.app/
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  hmaxwell
  wait why is it round?
• MiscIdeaMaker99
  What a gorgeous sight to behold!
• mkoryak
  This is exactly what I need for printing as 14x10 4x6 photos stitched together!
• getnormality
  If you're confused what you're looking at, turn it upside down.
• bytesandbits
  here the original NASA photos at high resolution without unnecessary ads.https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/
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  CommenterPerson
  Why didn't NASA or the news agencies rotate the image so North is up? and slightly to the right. That would make Africa instantly recognizable as that's how maps are imprinted in our brains.There is no "up" in space, so that wouldn't be editing the image I feel. The camera just happened to be oriented "upside down".
• anon
  undefined
• dzonga
  the pale blue dot.if anything in life gives me pleasure is I have experienced life, with its highs and downs on this little speck.
• radium3d
  Did they mount my Canon 7D to the outside? :D reminds me of the familiar grain haha
• anon
  undefined
• nout
  It took me a while to orient myself on that picture, until I realized where Spain is... :)
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  seydor
  whats different between this and all the other pics of earth from various space devices
• chistev
  This picture wasn't taken from far away, but I thought about that quote from Carl Sagan -Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.https://www.rxjourney.net/30-things-i-know
• yieldcrv
  I love how all the public critique about not being able to see stars in nasa photos has resulted in better dynamic range photography and compositionjust the lowest hanging fruit that had been a second class citizen to the marvel of having an extraterrestrial angle to begin with
• mrcwinn
  A beautiful reminder of what's possible with photography when you're using more than a comparatively crappy iPhone Pro Max camera. (Oh and taking the shot from Outer Space.)
• Uptrenda
  That picture of the "dark" Earth is most fascinating because everyone has seen a million images of Earth before, but how many have seen it in this view. The image by itself says a little about the Earths place in the planetary system.
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  suzzer99
  Where's Antarctica?
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  nektro
  truly stunning picture
• Rodmine
  Once video models get better, hope we can also see some videos.
• eager_learner
  this ought to put flat-earthers completely down. :)
• evilelectron
  Hello again dot.Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
• underlipton
  Can't decide if this is "MOEAGARE ARUCHIMISU" moment or a "Transcending Time" moment.
• Arpitbhalla
  just curious to know why is there no dark on opposite side if sun is another side?
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  bilsbie
  Can we confirm the cloud patterns match weather data from the same time? Might be a good way to verify.
• thumbsup-_-
  Imagine that all our joys, problems and attachments are within that blue sphere
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  brcmthrowaway
  Does there exist a camera that can zoom into a single person from this distance?
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  sandworm101
  Come on flat-earthers. I know you are out there. Lets hear your crazy rant about how this is a fisheye lens on a weather balloon or a webcam atop the eiffel tower. Why can't we see the poles? And is that an ice wall on poking up in the lower-right quadrant of the disk?
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  delichon
  I object to being included in this image without a model release and demand that pixel be removed.
• themarogee
  [dead]
• crimshawz
  [flagged]
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  _adq2
  [flagged]
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  damnitbuilds
  Anyone find the full res version of this ?Nasa images page is useless. Government work.
• erelong
  Literally a wasteful distraction from more important things