The Cassini probe orbiting Saturn looks back at Earth, which appears as a lonely dot in the night.

Not since Voyager 1’s portrait of Earth from Neptune – famously known as the Pale Blue Dot – has our home planet been photographed from the outer Solar System.

Cassini used its wide-angle camera to snap this home portrait while at a distance of about 930 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. The orbiter was looking down on the Atlantis Ocean and the western coast of North Africa at the time this shot was taken on Sept. 15, 2006.

A hint of the Earth’s Moon is visible in a close look at the pale blue orb (inset). The satellite appears as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Everything that is humanity’s feats and failings is encompassed in just a few pixels seen by Cassini’s camera eye.

The Earth appears through the underside of Saturn’s rings, the main body of which appear at right while the planet’s tenuous G ring reaches farther out. Saturn’s moon Enceladus also is seen in this image on the left, its watery plumes jetting material that eventually settles into the planet’s E ring.

Here’s a few more links to views of Earth from afar by robotic probes and some humans:

• Voyager’s Pale Blue Dot
• Mars Rovers See Earth, Moons and Stars
• As the World Turns: MESSENGER's Home Movie of Earth [VIDEO]
• Pixelated Earth Via NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• Messenger Looks Back at Earth
• When Astronauts Looked Home From Afar
• Evidence of Hydrocarbon Lakes on Titan
• Complete Coverage: Cassini’s Ongoing Mission to Saturn

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute