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[::..about this blog..::]
"...all these worlds..." is a blog by David Hitt. It covers space exploration, decent science fiction, humor (by its very nature), and whatever else I happen to find cool. (Formerly "You Must Fight The Bear")
Name: David Hitt About Me: Inspiring the next generation of explorers... See my complete profile
[::..disclaimer..::]
The opinions expressed on this page are those of the author, and very likely no one else.
[::..archive..::]
:: Monday, May 03, 2004 ::
One Last Look
How's this for a sense of scale: Remember last summer, when Mars was the closest it had been to Earth in thousands of years? Remember how bright it was in the night sky? But, even at that close distance, Mars was still just a dot in the sky. At its nearest, Mars was only 35 million miles from Earth. A little over a month ago, the Cassini spacecraft took its last full picture of Saturn. At a distance of 30 million miles, a little closer than Mars was to Earth, Saturn looms so large in the craft's narrow angle camera that it is now impossible to get the planet and its rings in one shot. We're aware in an academic sense that the outer gas giant planets are much larger than the inner rocky ones, but even so, thinking about Saturn being that big compared to the tiny dot of Mars is just amazing to me.