35 Stunning Hi-Res “Public Domain†Astronomy Images
Jay over at BittBox shared 35 stunning high-resolution astronomy images that are released into the public domain. In the wake of the legal scuffle between AP and Shepard Fairey over the Obama poster (Shepard based his famous work on a photo reportedly owned by AP, but now the photographer said that he didn’t sign any contract with AP – hmmm), Jay wants to highlight the importance of respecting copyright and identifying images that are released into public domain.
Basically, works that are released into public domain are not owned or controlled by anyone. It is implied that these materials are therefore “public property”, and available for anyone to use for any purpose.
Anyway, back to the main topic, Earth looks so beautiful from space! Viewing the images of planets and galaxies is not only just a humbling experience of how human civilization is so small when compared against entities that are thousands and millions of magnitudes bigger, but also stresses the importance that so far, Earth is our only home. All of us shall strive to make a change in our lifestyle to mitigate, or at least, minimize the damages we’re currently doing the environment.
Out of so many billion planets, we’re only that small little pale blue dot. It’s our home, we have nowhere else to go.
(^o^)
Oh my. What a fantastic post. Thank you for sharing this! I am such an avid admirer of astronomy. I love looking at pictures like these. :) Especially the Earth and Nebulae ones! It’s so amazing, that we live on something so beautiful and large.. yet really just a tiny speck in the middle of space. I love it. :)
Check out Latrina’s latest blog post » A face I could never forget.
I was very enthralled of the universe when I was a kid – I’m not a very big fan of it now, but its vastness and mysterious properties still gives me a good mind exercise. I remember hearing this line in the movie, Contact – “There are more stars out there than sand on this planet – if there are no life out there in the universe, isn’t that an awful waste of space?”
And watching Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth, when he tells the audience about the small little pale blue ‘pixel’ in a photo taken by Voyager spacecraft billions of miles away from Earth, I can’t help but think, are we alone? Are we the only living thing meant to appreciate the universe? :)