That Speck of Dust!

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this view of planet Earth as a point of light between the icy rings of Saturn on April 12, 2017.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Do you know this image captured by the Cassini spacecraft in April 2017? It was made near planet Saturn. Do you see that tiny point under the rings of Saturn? Yeah, that bright spot, that speck of dust is Earth. Earth with all that is on it: mountains, plains, oceans, countries, cities, people with their thoughts and dreams and sufferance … all this squeezed on the surface of this speck.
As we can see, at the scale of the universe we are nothing. If not only earth but the whole solar system disappear today, the universe will not notice; the equation of the universe would remain unchanged.
However, we humans feel great, strong, important. Well, we are not!
Or are we … in the Matrix? Then we may have some importance, but not as an individual but as a species!

This cropped, zoomed-in version of the image makes it easier to see Earth’s moon — a smaller, fainter dot to the left of our planet’s bright dot. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

If you make a simple calculation: this image has a resolution of 1020 x 1020 pixels, so it totals approx. 1000000 pixels. By enlarging the picture, you will see the Earth occupying approx. 12 pixels, and the Moon just one pixel. Impressive is the vastness of the universe, isn’t it?

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