Happy Earth Day in Pictures!

As you may have noticed from yesterday's unusual post, today is Earth Day! I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite pictures from space of it, including the famous photograph from Apollo 8 known as Earthrise:

This combination shot made from NASA’s Terra satellite and NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite:

The known satellites at least 0.1 meters in size in orbit around Earth (there are ~11,000 of them as of April 2005, and another 100,000 between 1 cm and 10 cm in size):

Looking at the Earth and the docked Space Shuttle from the International Space Station:

And the emergence of night over Europe and Africa (yes, the night lights are enhanced):

This is our home. I'll be back with more of the standard stuff you love about the Universe tomorrow, but for today, remember that in the vastness of space, in the depths of our galaxy, this little wet rock is where we came to be. And it's our responsibility to take care of it, just as it takes care of us. Happy Earth Day.