From ocean depths to deep space, marvel at awe-inspiring views of Earth

Children can transform cardboard boxes into the most interesting places on Earth. A flap becomes a door. A hole forms a window. A whole world fits within those paper walls.

Humankind remains curious as adults, but the scale of our world expands - a town, continent, ocean, planet, solar system or galaxy. We are the only known species that has traveled from the deepest crevices of the ocean to the edge of the solar system. Discoveries of new aspects of Earth evokes a sense of wonder, like finding a new corner of a childhood playhouse.

Starting as a swirling mixture of gas and dust, Earth now takes up 260 billion cubic miles in space. Millions of plant and animal species thrive on our rocky planet, although we may never know the exact count. It’s impossible to capture all the ways Earth is unique and beautiful, but we picked a few awe-inspiring perspectives, made possible by human ingenuity and curiosity, that remind us why we’re lucky to call Earth our home.

Under the sea

Mariana Trench, at 12,000 feet below sea level

Research beyond our home planet captures many people’s attention, but several mysteries linger on Earth.

Humans have traveled to one of those mysterious corners in the Mariana Trench, the deepest-known ocean trench on the planet extending about 36,000 feet deep. In one journey into the trench seven years ago, deep-sea scientists dove 12,000 of those feet to an area known as Enigma Seamount, nicknamed as such because they didn’t know much about it. They identified a stunningly beautiful jellyfish called the hydromedusa, just a preview of the unexplored life on Earth.

Peering down

Bering Sea, as captured by the Landsat 8 satellite 440 miles above Earth

High vantage points often reveal large-scale marks on our planet. In this image, green and blue hues off the coast of Alaska swirl around one another like paint running together. These colorful pockets are often blooms of microscopic marine algae called phytoplankton, derived from the Greek words phyto (meaning plant) and plankton (meaning wanderer).

These opaque turquoise waters probably contain trillions of phytoplankton called coccolithophores, which have white calcium-rich shells. Large blooms of algae can be dangerous to other marine life by stealing oxygen and nutrients they may need to live. Certain types of algae can also be toxic to marine and human life.

Staring from the International Space Station

Aurora, as captured from the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth

Occurring usually high above clouds, the aurora, also known as the northern lights in the northern hemisphere, paints the atmosphere with ethereal scenes. Green, red and purple ribbons of light dance across the sky and instill wonder to those who are lucky enough to catch it usually near the polar regions. The aurora can sometimes be obscured to sky watchers on the ground by clouds, but astronauts on the International Space Station can have a front-row seat to aurora activity from above. Their pictures can help improve estimates of the height and length of auroras and related light phenomena.

Folklore describes the origins of the lights in different ways: spirits dancing in heaven, a bridge between Earth and the realm of the gods, or Arctic foxes running through the sky. Now, scientists know the celestial phenomenon is created from solar particles interacting with Earth’s magnetic field, exciting oxygen and nitrogen molecules. As solar activity increases over the next two years, the aurora could more often appear at lower latitudes, including as far south as Arizona.

Looking from the lunar landscape

As captured from 240,000 miles away from Earth

The farthest point in space that humans have physically traveled is to the moon. After viewing Earth from space, many Apollo-era astronauts discussed a feeling overwhelming emotions: unity, appreciation, a heightened desire to care for our home planet.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth,” said astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. “I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

Some research, though, shows that you don’t have to go to space to experience that sensation, known as the overview effect, in some capacity. Looking at images of space as well as watching a sunrise or sunset can inspire awe and spirituality.

“It really is that precious blue marble, that beautiful island oasis in the middle of everything else,” said Jason Major, a citizen scientist who has processed thousands of images taken from spacecraft. “Even though we’re on Earth, Earth is also in space.”

Photobomb by the moon

As captured from a spacecraft orbiting 1 million miles away from Earth

Four times farther than the orbit of the moon, the Deep Space Climate Observatory captured this unique view of our lunar neighbor passing between the spacecraft and Earth on July 16, 2015.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory is located 1 million miles away from our planet. One of the spacecraft’s instruments provides data on streams of charged particles ejected from the sun and sometimes potentially headed toward Earth, which can help forecast the northern lights. At this distance, the onboard camera is also far enough to capture Earth’s entire sunlit surface in a single photograph.

A view from Mercury

As captured from a spacecraft located 114 million miles from Earth

Spacecraft designed to study other planets also looked back on our home. NASA’s Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft took a peek at Earth as it was orbiting Mercury. It was located 114 million miles from Earth at the time - farther than our average distance from the sun. Our planet and our moon appear as bright dots in the bottom-left side of the image.

Spotted from Saturn

As captured from a spacecraft 898 million miles away from Earth

While capturing a mosaic of Saturn’s entire ring system, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft caught a glimpse of Earth from about 898 million miles away on July 19, 2013. The sun lights up the planet’s icy, dusty rings from behind. The sunlit Earth appears as the brightest blue dot in the lower-right quadrant of the image, under Saturn’s rings.

Pale blue dot

As captured by a spacecraft from about 3.7 billion miles from Earth

The most iconic image of Earth was taken about 3.7 billion miles away as Voyager-1 was speeding out of our solar system past Neptune. It might not look like much at that distance, but it was meant to show Earth’s fragility and its small place in the universe.

On Feb. 14, 1990, the Voyager-1′s camera snapped an image of our planet, at the request of astronomer Carl Sagan, before it was intentionally shut down forever to conserve power and entered unknown interstellar space. In 2020, NASA reprocessed the image with modern techniques to remove artifacts. The beam of light passing through Earth is one of many scattered sun rays. Earth appears just a pixel in size - a pale blue dot.

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot,” said Sagan. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.”

The image remains the most distant image of our planet. It was also the furthest image taken away from Earth for nearly three decades, but the record was broken by the New Horizons spacecraft (the same one that photographed Pluto) in 2018.

Scientists continue to explore more frontiers in space, from sending new humans to the Moon to capturing uncharted cosmic sites with the James Webb Space Telescope. Yet as we search for life elsewhere or settle on a new planetary body, Earth will always be a special home.