This photograph is awesome to me because it was taken by a space vehicle over Mars on its way to destiny in 2014. We see the solar panels of ESA's Rosetta spacecraft and below, the surface of the red planet just four days ago.
It is just a snapshot taken on holiday by a robot on its way to work an unfathomable distance away in the Solar System.
The word majestic is not often used these days; people prefer 'cool' or 'brilliant' or 'awesome'. Perhaps in this era of wonders we hesitate to use the word because we want to hold some superlative adjectives back for that time when we are forced to truly wonder and marvel.
Man has come so far that it can test a camera by shooting a snap at a planet that it is passing by. Millions of miles away, a few days later, we can effortlessly see its result. The wonder is that there is so little wonder.
There are times when we should marvel and utter "Majestic" at what humans can achieve.
There is hope in this picture. So often the pitiful and pathetic greet me in the course of a sometimes coarse and weary day in this world, but, this evening, I saw this picture on my customised Google personal home page, and I saw majesty. There is so much to love in our fellow men and women; so much good. It is more than cool, more than awesome.
That this photgraph is considered everyday, quotidian, makes it even more remarkable.
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