Comments on: Earth flyby video

Earth flyby video

driveler — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:15:36 -0800

The MESSENGER spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on August 3, 2004 and returned to Earth for its first gravity boost on the way to Mercury a year later on August 2, 2005. MESSENGER took hundreds of high-res digital photos during its Earth flyby and they've been sequenced into an amazing movie of Earth rotating over 24 hours as the spacecraft swung past at thousands of miles per hour.

By: riffola

riffola — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:21:26 -0800

Sweet! For some reason this lil spacecraft has a significantly better camera than any of the recent NASA ones. Or so it seems.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:30:24 -0800

Awesome. This is one of those "i can't believe it's not CGI" moments.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:32:33 -0800

That's one of the prettiest things NASA has ever put out. Isn't the Earth just cute as a button? So shiny and spinny and stuff? What a cuteshy little gooshy wooshie poo.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:46:45 -0800

That's a good trick. Every once in a while, when coffee just won't cut the mustard, I'll swing by a corpulent dude for a gravity boost.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:54:26 -0800

So long, Ma! I'll call when I get work...

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:54:47 -0800

The movie is cool, and I like to see the reflection of the sun as a kind of bright spot throughout the movie. Or is that the red-eye reducer on the satellite flash?

By: dglynn

dglynn — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:58:57 -0800

For some reason, all shots of earth against the inky void always make me feel, well, lonely. Not individually lonely, just "at sea, out of sight of land" lonely. The boat always seems so small.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:00:34 -0800

I for one would like to protest this microsoft sponsored advertising campaign. Couldn't they name the probe the Jabber or the Talk? I guess Microsoft really does control everything.

By: Elpoca

Elpoca — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:02:47 -0800

I had no idea we were so shiny!

By: DakotaPaul

DakotaPaul — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:03:44 -0800

Rad!

By: hal9k

hal9k — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:10:16 -0800

The boat always seems so small. You're still big. It's the earth that got smaller as you waved it goodbye. Uh... why don't them clouds move around all swirly-like while the earth is turning? Is that non-reflective black area Australia 1/3 of the way through? It looks like a masked area filled with flat black. Maybe an Area 51 that doesn't reflect sunlight. and why ain't it full o stars?

By: killdevil

killdevil — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:11:36 -0800

That's just awesome.

By: papercake

papercake — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:14:09 -0800

amazing Now if only someone with the cgi chops would make it so that, as we pull further and further back, we see the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his noodly appendages behind the earth, I'd be very happy.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:19:39 -0800

Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to see the Earth rise over another horizon. Frank Borman, the mission commander, said: The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me — a small disk, 240,000 miles away. . . . Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don't show from that distance.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:31:26 -0800

Hell, cenoxo, you can't even see them from the mall.

By: thayerg

thayerg — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:45:50 -0800

This is as good a place as any to recommend the movie "For All Mankind" about the Apollo missions. The same kind of thing as this clip but much more compelling and intense. netflix has it.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:46:03 -0800

it's to bad we only get a shot of the earth as it's pulling away, it would be cool to see the earth aproach, and then pull back. Also, no stars! It must be another NASA hoax!!!!

By: Nugget

Nugget — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:53:30 -0800

Fantastic. I feel very humble, even without the stars. Honest.

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:51:05 -0800

<humble>Holy freaking Christ on a stick.</humble> Can we try not to wreck this thing? It's really pretty.

By: geoff.

geoff. — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:51:47 -0800

I'm still creeped out that you can't see stars from space.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:00:46 -0800

w-gp: ...you can't even see them from the mall. <OT>True, but that depends on the demographic.</OT>

By: Outlawyr

Outlawyr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:22:30 -0800

Great link. thanks

By: delfuego

delfuego — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:52:59 -0800

I agree with hal9k -- why don't the clouds move at all? It's 24 hours of the Earth's rotation; it would seem that the clouds would move somewhat, no?

By: Phantomx

Phantomx — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:31:09 -0800

hal9k and delfuego, You're looking for massive cloud movement (since that's all the detail you can make out) in six hours. The six hours is beacuse you can only really see 1/4 of the surface. There is a lot of cloud movement in six hours, but in the amount of detail we can see it won't show up.

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:36:19 -0800

Waits for Messenger spam..............

By: Bonzai

Bonzai — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:40:34 -0800

No way that was 24 hours. The border between night and day barely moved. That's why the clouds didn't move

By: intermod

intermod — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:25:29 -0800

<tired scientific explanation> The stars aren't visible for the same (well, nearly the same) reason that you don't see stars when the sun is up. You're blinded. </tired scientific explanation> [tired because I happened to read this today]

By: delfuego

delfuego — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:31:36 -0800

Ummm, Bonzai, the border between night and day doesn't move relative to our position on the satellite, but the Earth rotates through an entire 360-degree rotation -- an entire day/night passage -- from the start of the film to the end. It's really an entire 24-hour period.

By: Gamecat

Gamecat — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:42:51 -0800

That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Thank you.

By: birdsquared

birdsquared — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 21:42:36 -0800

What NASA has to say about the lack of photographed stars (albeit in the context of refuting a Moon landing hoax article). I cathect our blue-green-grey marble. It's got a Meta colour scheme.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:24:57 -0800

I know that it's completely logical that there should be a shiny spot where the sunlight reflects on the sphere, but in this context it makes it seem fake. I'm also wondering why the movie begins with Earth already in hindsight -- unless during the approach the sun was too close to the camera lens, but the angle of the terminator doesn't make it seem that way. Approaching and whipping past would have been just that much extra cooler.