NASA officials are urging the earthlings to look up and wave as two spacecrafts will soon be taking pictures of Earth from Space.
The first spacecraft named Cassini located in the Saturn system will begin its "photographing" session Friday, July 19 between 5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, during which time the spacecraft will be 900 million miles away from Earth. This distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth
A similar photo shoot session will take place July 19 and 20 at 7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. on both days but this time it will be NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury taking the pictures.
The space agency encourages the public to look up in the direction of Saturn and wave. Officials also have requested the public to share their pictures over the Internet. The Cassini Earth "photo shoot" is part of a bigger mosaic that includes pictures of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun. These pictures will highlight the tiniest of ring particles, allowing scientists to see patterns within Saturn's dusty rings. It is likely to take several weeks before the entire mosaic is ready, though pictures of the Earth should be ready in a few days, reveals the space agency in a press statement.
According to an earlier press release, the space agency said that the Earth appears like as "pale blue dot" from Saturn.
Earlier reports stated that though Cassini previously composed eclipse mosaics of the Saturn system in 2006 and 2012, this will be the first mosaic that will capture Earth in its natural blue color.
"While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini's vantage point 898 million (1.44 billion kilometers) away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We hope you'll join us in waving at Saturn from Earth, so we can commemorate this special opportunity."
