Friday, July 9, 2010

Isn't She Lovely?

This is your world, as seen from outer space. Outer Space...........isn't that a quaint term? I guess I'm showing my age here.

I'm not quite sure where this pic was taken from; either the International Space Station, or the Space Shuttle, but I think it is one of the loveliest images I have ever seen! It's also a magnificent image, because it gives us a perspective of scale, that is truly humbling. Note the thunderstorm in the center left of the picture. See the anvil extending high into the troposphere? That is a massive thunderstorm, yet it looks so small in comparison to its surroundings, in just this one little section of our planet.

We are even smaller, far smaller in fact, in comparison to that thunderstorm. We might as well be ants...............such is our significance in the overall scheme of things........or is it? Actually, I think we have an individual significance, far greater than our relatively microscopic stature would indicate, and a collective significance even greater than that huge thunderstorm!

At least I know that's true of all of you!

Melissa XX

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Melissa,
Re: ur comment to Donna about alone time. I have been commenting to her about how necessary really true "Donna time" is for the last couple of years.
I too don't know how she does it.
DWKme

Halle said...

Experts tell us that for the most part, our attitudes are formed early in our lives and by the time we are sixteen it is difficult to change. From there onward however, there are experiences that have the power to transform.

Seeing the planet from outer space (yes, I also remember that, and still use it) is one of those.

It seems that folks like ourselves are more open than others to transformation; in more ways that the obvious too!

Thanks for the reminder of the awesome beauty of our home Melissa.

Hugs

Lucy Melford said...

It's a view that can make you cry for its beauty and its fragility. And we are more like atoms than ants in terms of insignificance when you take a grand view like this.

When I sometimes worry about what we do to our planet, I ease my mind by reflecting that there is really no war or mining or pollution or defoliation outrage we can inflict that the ordinary forces of nature can't smooth over inside 50,000 years. Even the after-effects of a nuclear holocaust would be mostly absorbed within a few million years. And in any case, in only a billion years or so the sun, with its supply of hydrogen running low, will begin to expand into a red giant and engulf the earth in the process. I am prepared to lay good money on no life as we know it being around at that time, including ourselves. Of course, should a rogue meteor or unstable asteroid ever strike us before then, the game will be up at once.

A cosmic point of view is great for getting things into perspective! But of course useless for day-to-day emergencies!

Lucy

Stace said...

What a beautiful picture.

Pictures from space always have the power to make me speachless...

Stace

VĂ©ro B said...

Awesome photo!