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Open this photo up and look for the small, white dot just left of centre. It looks like Venus, shining brightly in the twilight sky. But it's us. It's Earth. From Mars.

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I don’t know why I have never seen this image before. Maybe I have. But this to me is incredible and belongs in that pantheon of just a few images that really shows the scale of where we are and how we fit within the cosmos. ♥️

This is NASA Photojournal image PIA17936, taken by the Curiosity rover some 80 minutes after sunset on Friday, 31 January 2014. At the time, our home 160 million kilometres away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU

Seems so insignificant. Even looking only from Mars. But consider that we may be the only life in the galaxy. Perhaps even the universe. We don't know that life ever arose elsewhere. This could've just been some kind of bizarre fluke. And look what we are doing with it. It's shameful. 

It can make you feel insignificant, as alone as a character in a Lovecraft story. But there is a beauty in it, it makes everything in your life smaller, shorter lived and thus more precious.

Many years ago, I wrote in my h.s. yearbook: "The universe is infinitely big, with uncounted stars, planets, and civilizations. Here we sit on a moss-covered rock, feeling important. We're not, but let's make the most of our rock anyhow. It's all we have."

From my understanding, you can't see our Moon from Mars with the naked eye. When they are at their closest approach, the view of Earth will always be during the day. And when they're not being viewed during the day, the Moon and Earth are too far away to be separate points of light.

This is a really great picture to share right now with how prominent Venus has been in the evening sky lately. Six weeks until greatest eastern elongation!