Mars Rover

Before the Mars Curiosity Rover, There Was Earthrise

Image source: CNN.com

Yesterday, an image tweeted by the Mars Curiosity Rover with the message “Look back in Wonder . . . My 1st Picture of Earth from the Surface of Mars” proliferated on the internet. As I stared into the screen, primed by half-a-century’s worth of cultural reference points, the oft-repeated excerpt from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1997) came to mind. Looking at the latest Mars Curiosity Rover images, I couldn’t help but think about how I navigate my connection to Earth through a series of more iconic images of space, and the things which have been said about those images. In this post, I’d like to briefly walk through some of the other iconic photos of Earth that inform our present viewing experience.

Recent comments