China’s Chang’e 5-T1 is the latest in a series of robotic missions to eventually return a lunar sample to Earth. Its mission is to “simply” travel to the Moon and return to Earth. Just a little run around the neighborhood. But as it was coming around the far side of the Moon, it snapped this image that should make us all stop and marvel:
You’ve got to click to see the full-sized image. It’s a perspective that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Yes, similar views were captured during the Apollo program, but nothing quite like this. Our Moon’s far side is so very different from its near side that it almost looks like an alien world. Most of the maria regions are on the near side, and thanks to tidal forces, we can never see the far side of the Moon from Earth. And yet, it’s our Moon. And there we are, on that small blue/white sphere in the distance.
I first spotted this image on the Planetary Society’s blog and it’s cool to see it getting passed around. I think images like these are crucial to our survival. Hopefully, as we continue to “grow up” as a species, we’ll better understand how finite our planet really is, how alone in the dark we really are. And how lucky we are to be alive to see it like this.