NASA's Juno video shows a starship's view of Earth and the moon

[bananas]

Source: NBC

A new video shows Earth and the moon whirling through space, as seen by NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft in October.

"If Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise said, 'Take us home, Scotty,' this is what the crew would see," the Southwest Research Institute's Scott Bolton, principal investigator for the $1.1 billion Juno mission, said in a NASA news release. “In the movie, you ride aboard Juno as it approaches Earth and then soars off into the blackness of space. No previous view of our world has ever captured the heavenly waltz of Earth and moon."

This clip even has an original score — by the composer Vangelis, no less.

Pale blue dot

Ever since its launch in 2011, Juno has been making its way to a 2016 encounter with Jupiter. To get there, the bus-sized spacecraft took advantage of a gravitational slingshot maneuver on Oct. 9 that came within 350 miles (560 kilometers) of Earth's surface. The two-minute video released on Tuesday shows the view from four cameras that are mounted near the tip of one of Juno's solar arrays. The cameras are designed to track faint stars and get the right orientation for Juno's magnetic-field sensors. In October, they were pressed into duty to watch Earth pass by.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/nasas-juno-video-shows-earth-moon-starship-would-see-them-2D11723752`

---

[merrily]

1. I am no trekker, but I don't think Kirk would say "Take us home, Scotty."

[Blue_Tires]

6. And you'd of course be correct...

[Moostache]

2. Awesome stuff!

I am reminded of Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot". Everything in human history, all that we think so important and vital has happened on that tiny little oasis in the vast sea of blackness in space. Utterly amazing and so endlessly fascinating!

Thanks for posting this!

[Richardo]

3. Fantastic

[onehandle]

4. We are a moist film on a speck of dust in a sea of oblivion.

Awesome!

[bigdarryl]

5. Amazing how this tinny little planet of ours

Has so many crazy people on it

[mountain grammy]

7. Fantastic! Just awesome!

[paleotn]

8. That kind of puts things in perspective....

...with apologies to Carl Sagan.....Just think. Everyone you've ever known or ever heard of, every human that has ever lived never ventured beyond those two bodies. And the number that actually traveled to the smaller one is unimaginably tiny compared to the total of humanity. Viewed from even the inner solar system, we're but a spec. A tiny blue ball, inhabited by even tinier creatures, some of who think they're the center of our universe. Go figure.

[eggplant]

10. Young Carl Sagan...

[boomersense]

9. Spock would say, "Interesting..."...................nt

ddd

[alfredo]

11. I can see Palin's ego from there.

[jsr]

12. Outstanding.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

13. That was fucking awesome.

Wow!

[bleedinglib]

14. Carl sagan!!

If there were one civilization for ever trillion stars in the universe? there would be "one trillion civilizations"
That just puts into perspective how tiny yet important our home is
Take care of it folks

[Delphinus]

15. Wonderful!

Thanks for sharing.