What the Astronaut saw.

[Octafish]

87. The Day the Earth Smiled

Earth as seen from beyond Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft.

On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.
With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
With both Cassini's wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras aimed at Saturn, Cassini was able to capture 323 images in just over four hours. This final mosaic uses 141 of those wide-angle images. Images taken using the red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide-angle camera were combined and mosaicked together to create this natural-color view. A brightened version with contrast and color enhanced, a version with just the planets annotated, and an unannotated version are also available.
This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.

CONTINUED...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4918

PS: You are most welcome, allan01. Thank you for sharing you and your mom's experiences. I grew up in the 60s -- the luckiest kid on the planet, as my best friend's dad worked at Whirlpool -- St. Joseph/Benton Harbor, Michigan's big manufacturer of home appliances and maker of NASA space food. Bill's pop was in the PR department and brought home press releases and information that we used to start our "NASA scrapbooks."

As 9- and 11-year olds, we would write to the various NASA facilities around the country and they would ALWAYS respond -- with kind letters, accompanied by news releases, NASA Facts, pamphlets, mission summaries and all manner of information that we would consume and talk about until the next package arrived. We followed most of the Gemini missions together, starting with Gemini IV and Ed White's spacewalk. My mom would go out on the morning of a launch and buy reel-to-reel tapes so we could record Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman's reportage.

We were devastated by the loss of a Gemini crew in a training accident and then the Apollo 1 fire. We learned at an early age about loss. We also learned never give up. It was our moms who helped us move forward. Thank you so much for helping me remember that time.