Say Cheese! Two NASA Spacecraft Image Earth Today from Saturn

Say cheese! Two NASA spacecraft are maneuvering into position in order to take pictures of our blue planet, Earth, today and tomorrow. The new images could give scientists a better look at our planet as seen from space.

The first one is being taken from the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Currently, the spacecraft is about 900 million miles away from Earth, which means that the Earth will be little more than a tiny spec. That said, NASA is encouraging people to look up and wave when the image is taken between 5:27 p.m. EDT and 5:42 p.m. EDT.

"While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini's vantage point 898 million miles away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, in a news release.

So why image Earth? Cassini's new picture will be part of a more extensive mosaic of the Saturn system as it's backlit by the sun. In other words, it's not all about our planet. The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn's dusty rings.

This isn't the first time that Cassini has made mosaics of the Saturn system. It also imaged the area in 2006 and in 2012. Yet Earth remained elusive in these other efforts, and the mosaics weren't able to catch our planet in natural color, as human eyes would see it.

Unfortunately, these pictures won't be instant. Processing the Earth images will take several days and processing the full Saturn system mosaic will probably take a few weeks. Nonetheless, the effort should result in some pretty interesting photos when it's complete.

It's not just Cassini that's taking images, though. NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury is expected to also take some pictures of Earth--accidentally. Our planet is coincidentally expected to appear in some of MESSENGER's images as it searches for natural satellites around Mercury.

With the two spacecraft taking images, the Earth should be able to seen completely. Parts of our planet not illuminated in the Cassini pictures, for example, will appear illuminated in the MESSENGER images. Until they're processed, though, we'll have to wait to see what Earth looks like from Saturn.