Speaking of Australia…
The European probe Rosetta is on its way to investigate the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. To get there, it has to swing by the Earth a couple of times to pick up energy. It stole a bit of energy from us just a couple of weeks ago, and when it did it took a flurry of images of the Earth and Moon. I think my fave is this one:
The only land you can see is Australia, looking a bit brown now that it’s the dead of summer there. I doubt there much that can be learned from pictures like this (although they are very handy for calibrating the cameras, of course), but I’m glad the mission teams take them anyway. They’re pretty, and that’s cool too.
