To Earth From Mars

“Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.” – Buckminster Fuller

On May 8th 2003 this, the first image of the Earth as seen from another planet, was snapped from Mars by the Mars Global Surveyor. Blurred and pixilated as it is, one can sense, so cosmically striking, a distance unknown and perhaps, a more profound sense of awe than any other, closer image of Earth. Such previous and now, ubiquitous Images of Earth from Planetary Spacecraft often show those continents and ridges so readily mapped across our minds and memories, histories and associations.

This image of the Earth, and the Moon beyond it, from Mars is alarmingly alien. Of course, the aliens are we.