Spectacular footage: The Earth from 1.4 billion kilometers - STERN.DE

itemprop=”caption”> Cassini makes unique shots of the rings of Saturn and the Earth © NASA / AFP

D ie earth and the moon have been photographed for the first time successfully at a distance

of 1.4 billion kilometers. The U.S. space agency NASA on Tuesday released photos of 19 of the 1997 Cassini space probe sent into space on July were taken near the planet Saturn. “The pictures remind us how tiny our planet in the universe,” said Linda Spilker, the project staff.

Cassini was swung in July 2004 after a seven year journey over 3.5 billion km in orbit around Saturn. The spacecraft is a US-European joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency ESA. NASA pointed out that the image quality of Cassini images is particularly noteworthy because the camera used from the 1990s and comes in more than 15 years in operation.

The pictures now published Saturn’s rings are seen partly in brilliant sharpness, whereas earth and moon appear only as small luminous celestial body. The recordings were made possible by the fact that the sun was seen at the moment of triggering the camera hidden behind Saturn. Otherwise, the light rays would have been too intense.