Beautiful Earth

[Tal]

Nice planet, we'll take it! (http://www.astrobio.net/articles/images/earth.jpg)

Or take a look from the surface of Mars. (http://www.astrobio.net/news/article872.html)

http://www.astrobio.net/articles/images/mars_earthview.jpg

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....

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.

An Excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot
by Carl Sagan (http://www.planetary.org/html/society/advisors/sagandot.html)

[cwinton]

Those beautiful words ... beautiful thoughts.
Thanks for sharing those, Tal. :)

I miss Carl ...

[Fredfredson]

That is Awesome!

Thanks :wave

F
:pooter

[Tal]

Cheers fellas. Contemplating our home planet is one of the few things that arouse 'patriotic' feelings in me, (or feelings that I perhaps mistakenly assume to be akin to patriotism.

Listening to Elgar, reciting Shakespeare, seeing Dover's cliffs again after months away; these things can give me a tingle sure, but they pale beside what Earth means to me.)

Tom Paine said: "My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind," and I like to think I feel the same.

And yes Carl Sagan (http://www.carlsagan.com/), a remarkable and brilliant man, a true American hero, (one of my personal heroes too.)

[roseval]

Tal,
that first image is only the Americas face of the planet.
Actually, I saw some Ireland UK-Br Isles-The Islands ones yesterday. I'll put them on later.

[roseval]

Here's western Europe, almost a year ago, showing a Saharan dust storm, heading northwestwards.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Apr2003/DustOverEurope.OSWA2003106.jpg

[Tal]

Wow Rose, absolutely gorgeous! Cheers!

But hey, surely you know the American hemisphere is the world don't you? :rollin

(j/k obviously.)

Btw, if you can get BBC2 where you are (which I think you can) watch out for Natural World today at 6.10 pm. It's called "Ireland - Sculpted Isle (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/)" and looks like one not to miss!

[roseval]

Can we get BBC2???? Ha ha.


Thanks for the tip off, I wouldn't have noticed it.
Hope I haven't seen it under a diff title.

[toolman846]

"Listening to Elgar, ...."

You too? I knew we had things in common, Tal. And "Pomp and Circumstance" is not my favorite of his works, although I am quite fond of it.

[Tal]

I love the Nimrod Variations. Divine stuff! :)

[Zan de Man]

You mean the Enigma Variations. That was one of the pieces my dad introduced me to when I was a kid. The Nimrod was my favourite. But my favourite piece of Elgar is the Cello Concerto, played by Jacqueline Du Pré with Sir John Barbirolli and the LSO. A hauntingly beautiful piece of music. It was his last major work and he wrote it towards the end of the terrible First World War. They say it carried intimations of his own death.

I'd recommend that you listen to it, if you haven't already.

I've just put it on.

[Tal]

http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/doh.gif

You're quite right Zan.
The Enigma Variations! Of course!
What is happening to my memory these days? Can't blame that one on the new board!

And you're right about the Cello Concerto too, absolutely glorious. :)

Here's a good site for Elgar lovers anyway.
The Elgar Society (http://www.elgar.org/)

[roseval]

I'm declaring this the environmental interest corner,
not the blooming Elgar appreciation corner! (are the two incompatible?)

Here's the moon as seen from Raphoe Co Donegal, last week.


Taken from a website that shows the real power of the web.
Local "blow-in" webguy started recording his hedgerow, 1st Jan 03, the emergence dates for plants, the insects, the birds and so on. Interest grows.
Now he has public funding. Wish I'd done it, but I don't have such an attractive patch to go walking on, nor the patience for the everyday work.
Well done, Stu.http://homepage.eircom.net/~hedgerow2/red-moon.JPG

[Tal]

Wonderful! :cheers
Pardon the rambling rose! (Geddit?!)

Can't resist posting this now anyway, another awesome and humbling space pic (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/56533main_MM_image_feature_142_jwfull.jpg) of our 'environment'!

(Like the first pic in this thread it's a big one, or I'd just post it as an image. ;) )

[sir digalot]

there we are in the arse end of nowhere.... geez maybe we weren't meant to find other life in fears of being embarrasinglt thick!?

tho i was kinda expecting those wonderful shots of the earth from the moon which looks so cool... not this little white dot in the sky..

guess it's kinda cool....

[Tal]

Did you see this one? (http://www.astrobio.net/articles/images/earth.jpg)

[ElorinKymn]

You know... on other planets, they're probably talking about us the way many Americans talk of Alabama: "You realize that they still sleep with their same species, right?" "Ewww... that's disgusting!" "Yes... those Earthling hicks..."