14 DAY TRIAL // On July 19, NASA urged the world to stop as the Cassini space probe was about to take a photo of our planet. Granted, the photo was actually of Saturn and Earth only shows up as a small white speck, but the move wasn't entirely symbolic.
While the gorgeous photo shot by Cassini was published a few weeks back, NASA is now publishing a new image, a mosaic of photos shot by the people who waved to the distant probe.
More than 1,400 people from 40 countries contributed to the composite image, which NASA has assembled into a resemblance of the Earth. Oh, and in case you're not convinced that the image is real and unaltered, you can check out the full size one (28.3 MB) where the individual shots are visible.
"That event on July 19, 2013, marked the day the Cassini spacecraft turned back toward Earth to take our picture as part of a larger mosaic of the Saturn system. The images came via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email. As a tribute to the people of Earth, the mission has assembled this collage from the shared images, using an image of Earth as the base image," NASA explained.