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So long, Earth. The Movie

NASA/Messenger/JHUAPL 

On August 2, 2005, NASA's Maryland-built Messenger spacecraft flew past Earth at the start of a series of planetary flybys needed to send it sunward to the planet Mercury. The flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury are designed to use the planets' gravity to slow Messenger down enough to enter orbit around Mercury in 2011.

The Messenger Web site includes this movie assembled from still images taken during the Earth flyby in 2005 - a year after Messenger's launch. It shows an astonishingly beautiful blue planet, rotating in the sunshine as we - aboard Messenger - speed away from our world, and everything - and everyone - we've ever known. Amazing.

 

Posted by Frank Roylance on January 19, 2008 10:16 PM |
                    

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About Frank Roylance
Frank Roylance is a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He came to Baltimore from New Bedford, Mass. in 1980 to join the old Evening Sun. He moved to the morning Sun when the papers merged in 1992, and has spent most of his time since covering science, including astronomy and the weather. One of The Baltimore Sun's first online Web logs, the Weather Blog debuted in October 2004. In June 2006 Frank also began writing comments on local weather and stargazing for The Baltimore Sun's print Weather Page.
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