You know, it gets downright depressing when you tune in to the news each day and see nothing but bad news.
Civil war in Libya, earthquake and tsunami devastation in Japan and the nuclear power plant crisis that developed from that, unrest and armed crackdowns it seems, everywhere. Not to mention the usual litany of murders, famine, poverty, and all manner of other strife.
Humanity is not shining much, it seems, lately.
But finally, I happened upon this gem of an article via Wikipedia "In the news"...
NASA's MESSENGER space probe becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mercury
The article explains that though Mariner 10 visited our solar system's inner-most planet to the sun back in 1975, no craft until now has achieved orbit.
That momentous space exploration step aside though, here's the thing that really put a little tear in my eye.
From a little over a hundred million miles away, the space craft snapped a photo of the Earth and the moon.
How small our world seems when viewed from the vastness of space. Even from a relatively minuscule distance as 100,000,000 miles.
You'd think that with so little area we can call home, we, the "intelligent" species on Earth could find a way to live in peace and harmony with each other.
Civil war in Libya, earthquake and tsunami devastation in Japan and the nuclear power plant crisis that developed from that, unrest and armed crackdowns it seems, everywhere. Not to mention the usual litany of murders, famine, poverty, and all manner of other strife.
Humanity is not shining much, it seems, lately.
But finally, I happened upon this gem of an article via Wikipedia "In the news"...
NASA's MESSENGER space probe becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mercury
The article explains that though Mariner 10 visited our solar system's inner-most planet to the sun back in 1975, no craft until now has achieved orbit.
That momentous space exploration step aside though, here's the thing that really put a little tear in my eye.
From a little over a hundred million miles away, the space craft snapped a photo of the Earth and the moon.
You'd think that with so little area we can call home, we, the "intelligent" species on Earth could find a way to live in peace and harmony with each other.