How does this photo taken from Saturn impact your view of your own place in the universe?

Question

This is a photo of Saturn, seen in eclipse, taken by the Cassini space probe. Before you read the text connected to the photo below, can you find earth in the picture?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html

How does this perspective effect your views on the elections, global warming, creationism v. evolution, etc.?

Here's another photo where you can barely make out a fuzzy moon circling the earth:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060927.html

Does your religion have anything to say about such an insignificant dot?

.

I should have said "OUR place in the universe." I just loved the perspective of these photos.

They're trying to determine what to do with the Cassini probe once it's done with its work around Saturn. They can send it out through the solar system, toward the Kuyper Belt, or back toward the sun (and Mercury). Ultimately, they will need to destroy it safely because it contains significant radioactive material. They don't want to crash it into Saturn because it would need to pass through a ring, and some of Saturns moons may hold life. Jupiter is a possible crash site, too, or they can just send it off into deep space.

Anyone have any opinion about what to use the probe for before we lose contact with it?

Answer 1

is there any way to change our place in the universe?

Answer 2

For those that have the belief that we are so special and the only like us it might be very frightening.

I have understood since very young that we and out planet are nothing more than a very tiny speck of dust in the universe.

This does not change my view at all but shows that we are just a very small part of what is out there.

Knowing that our sun is a small and young star there most likely are planets out there with intelligent life much more advanced than what we are.

Then again there may be something special about us human beings. Most definitely there will be very few if any like us out there. Life in its self is not special but how life evolves can be.

Just the beginning and there will be much more to com.

Answer 3

the information nonetheless exists as easy power in area. An observer the the superb option distance far flung from earth (say 15 easy years for an experience 15 years in the past) with an somewhat stable telescope could desire to view the form. this is in fact real, yet impractical, because of the fact the spinning of the earth could make it impossibly confusing for the observer to stay interior the path of the sunshine emitted with the help of the form they needed to verify.

Answer 4

My religion says:

012.004
YUSUFALI: Behold! Joseph said to his father: "O my father! I did see eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them prostrate themselves to me!"

"And the firmament(sky) We constructed with power and skill and verily We are expanding it" The noble Qur'an, Al-Thariyaat(51):47.

"Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were fused then We ripped them asunder, and We created from water every living thing, do they not believe?" The noble Qur'an, Al-Anbia(21):30.

"Then He settled/equilibrated unto the firmament(sky) when it was smoke and said unto it and to the earth: come willingly or unwillingly. They said: we come willingly" The noble Qur'an, Fussilat(41):11.

And many others...

You should look it up.

As far as my perspective...the picture was awesome...and I felt humbled once more..by the weakness of my nature...and ask God that He may protect us from such a thing on Earth.

Answer 5

Interesting especially the ring formations which look like a rainbow concept of light refracting through refractiongrating (dust particles from an old moon or asteroid or comet or several based on the distinct outer rings).

Answer 6

Its beautiful don't you think. It does seem that God might have just created us as an after thought. Or perhaps he didn't create us with any special purpose in mind at all. Perhaps we are just an after effect of the chemistry experiment he was conducting. Like bacteria on food.

Answer 7

Those two wonderful photos have no impact on my religious beliefs or that seemingly "insignificant dot".

Answer 8

These photos, if true, deepen my faith in God

They show you that God created Saturn and Earth, and just look how amazingly they are created, and look at the tremendous difference between them

Answer 9

the earth is just a speck of existance, residing 3/4 of the way down one spiral arm of our milky way galaxy. It certainly seems like a random placement for the only known source of intelligent life in the known univere, but I still believe in a creator.
100 BILLION GALAXIES WITH 100 BILLION STARS IN EACH ONE OF THEM -- AND I STLL BELIEVE.

Answer 10

Those photos remind me about how small I am and and that God is so much greater!